Enlightenment History

Brought to you by Penguin. The Enlightenment is one of the formative periods of Western history, yet more than 300 years after it began, it remains controversial. It is often seen as the fountainhead of modern values such as human rights, religious toleration, freedom of thought, scientific...

From its beginnings as a loosely definable group of philosophical ideas to the culmination of its revolutionary effect on public life in Europe, the Age of Enlightenment is the defining intellectual and cultural movement of the modern world. Using reason as its core value, the Enlightenment believed that progress and the betterment of the human condition was inevitable.

Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects.

Brought to you by Penguin. Unlikely best friends Thomas and Grace are bound together by questions of faith, love and astronomy in this dazzling summer read from the #1 bestselling author. Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though...

Brought to you by Penguin. Is modernity really failing? Or have we failed to appreciate progress and the ideals that make it possible? If you follow the headlines, the world in the 21st century appears to be sinking into chaos, hatred and irrationality. Yet, as Steven Pinker shows, if you follow...

What is enlightenment? Is it a myth or is it real? On The Science of Enlightenment, you will learn that the liberated state is as real as the sensations you are having right now. For it is through the investigation of your own thoughts and feelings that you can awaken to clear insight and a...

The End of Enlightenment offers a radical re-evaluation of one of the most important moments in human history. Tracing around the world the changing perspectives of economists, philosophers, politicians and polemicists, historian Richard Whatmore argues that, for figures as diverse as David Hume, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and Mary Wollstonecraft, the Enlightenment was a profound failure. They had strived to replace superstition with reason, fanaticism with toleration, but witnessed instead terror and revolution, corruption, gross commercial excess and the continued growth of violent empire.

For decades, one of the most engaging teachers of our time has illuminated the many dimensions of awakening - but solely at his live retreats and on audio recordings. Now, with The Science of Enlightenment, Shinzen Young brings to listeners an uncommonly lucid guide to mindfulness meditation for the first time: how it works and how to use it to enhance your cognitive capacities, your kindness and connection with the world, and the richness of all your experiences. As thousands of his students and listeners will confirm, Shinzen is like no other teacher you’ve ever encountered.

Today more than ever, there are many people searching high and low for detailed explanations and guidance on how to find relief from their struggles and find lasting happiness and peace. Whether they know it or not, what they are searching for is enlightenment.

The is the second edition of the Enlightenment Trap which includes two new chapters and photography. In 2012, 38-year-old Ian Thorson's search for spiritual transcendence ended in tragedy on a remote Arizona mountaintop. His wife, a woman anointed as a goddess by an eccentric Buddhist community, held him in her arms as he slowly died from dehydration and dysentery. For Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, Thorson's death was just the most recent iteration of an unspoken epidemic that connected intensive meditation and mental instability.

The first complete history of the world’s most notorious secret society – and its bizarre and dangerous afterlife that we’re still reckoning with today. On 1 May 1776 a radical young professor named Adam Weishaupt founded a secret society with the aim of infiltrating and overturning the...

Peace. Calm. Mindfulness. Enlightenment. These are appealing concepts, but they never seem like they're within grasp of the everyday person. With all our responsibilities in life, most of us are doing our best just to keep up, let alone have time to find that elusive 'inner calm'. Luke McLeod...

The author of the classic The Dream of Reason vividly explains the rise of modern thought from Descartes to Rousseau...

Thoroughly researched with beautifully linked arguments, biographies, context and discussions, Needham provides a riveting text: balancing fact and understanding in the wisdom of experience. The book offers a wealth of knowledge for pastors, missionaries, students and professors as they pursue their own education into the response of Christians during the 18th century towards these shifts in the tides of the affairs of men.

Approximately four million Americans claim to be Buddhist. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of Americans of various faiths read about Buddhism, are interested in its philosophical tenets, or fashionably view themselves as Buddhists. They’re part of what’s been described as the fastest growing religious movement in America: a large group of people dissatisfied with traditional religious offerings and thirsty for an approach to spirituality grounded in logic and consistent with scientific knowledge.

Advanced Teachings on Spiritual Awakening, Freedom, and the Mystery of Consciousness In the early 1990s, A.H. Almaas had a realization he was not expecting—even after years of deep inner awakenings. “I thought it was a personal experience, not a teaching,” he reflects. Now, after two...

One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world. Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world.

The author of the classic The Dream of Reason vividly explains the rise of modern thought. Western philosophy is now two-and-a-half millennia old, but much of it came in just two staccato bursts, each lasting only about 150 years. In his landmark survey of Western philosophy from the Greeks to...

If you want to discover the captivating history of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, then this two-in-one books bundle is for you. Includes: Age of Enlightenment and The Industrial Revolution.

In Enlightenment to Go, David Michie provides a lively and accessible guide to 'the best of' Shantideva. Sharing his enthusiasm for Shantideva's radical insights, life-changing psychological tools and transcendent wisdom, he draws on a wide variety of scientific sources – from mindfulness training to cognitive behaviour therapy, from neuropsychology to quantum physics – to show how Shantideva's Guide is as relevant as ever.