Jonathan I. Israel’s Followers (158)

Jonathan I. Israel

Born

in The United Kingdom

January 26, 1946

Genre

History, Philosophy

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Jonathan Irvine Israel is a British writer on Dutch history, the Age of Enlightenment and European Jews. Israel was appointed as Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, in January 2001. He was previously Professor of Dutch History and Institutions at the University of London.

In recent years, Israel has focused his attention on a multi-volume history of the Age of Enlightenment. He contrasts two camps. The "radical Enlightenment" founded on a rationalist materialism first articulated by Spinoza. Standing in opposition was a "moderate Enlightenment" which he sees as profoundly weakened by its belief in God. In Israel’s highly controversial interpretation, the r ...more

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Jonathan I. Israel’s books

Average rating: 4.07 · 1,913 ratings · 213 reviews · 55 distinct works • Similar authors

	Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 4.19 avg rating — 395 ratings — published 2001 — 23 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806 4.27 avg rating — 350 ratings — published 1995 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy 3.79 avg rating — 394 ratings — published 2009 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre 3.94 avg rating — 140 ratings — published 2014 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752 4.28 avg rating — 104 ratings — published 2006 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790 4.17 avg rating — 83 ratings — published 2011 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775-1848 4.06 avg rating — 54 ratings — published 2017 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Spinoza, Life and Legacy 4.40 avg rating — 40 ratings — published 2023 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Enlightenment that Failed: Ideas, Revolution, and Democratic Defeat, 1748-1830 4.10 avg rating — 40 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	European Jewry In The Age Of Mercantilism 1550-1750 3.87 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 1985 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Jonathan I. Israel (?)

“In a passage penned for the Abbé Raynal’s Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, lines written shortly after the Revolution’s onset in 1776, Diderot, confident that they would succeed, urges the insurgents to remember in building their new world not to allow inequality of wealth to become too great. He admonished them to “fear a too unequal division of wealth resulting in a small number of opulent citizens and a multitude of citizens living in misery, from which there arises the arrogance of the one and the abasement of the other.”13”
― Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy

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“Priestley, who was well known on both sides of the Atlantic for his researches into electricity and chemistry, called for the total abolition of the aristocracy on the grounds that this would prove a moral blessing not only for society but also for the nobility themselves.42”
― Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy

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“Without classifying radical thought as a Spinozistic tendency, combining one-substance doctrine or philosophical monism with democracy and a purely secular moral philosophy based on equality, the basic mechanics of eighteenth-century controversy, thought, and polemics cannot be grasped.”
― Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy

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