“In this immensely informative and highly readable inquiry into the origins of Enlightenment thinking about race, Curran demonstrates that ideas cannot be understood apart from the people who produced them. This is intellectual biography performed at the very highest level.” —Maurice Samuels, Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French at Yale University and author of Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair
Praise for Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely:
“Engrossing…a narrative sustained with appealing clarity and energy…readers of this biography are likely to be impressed by the scope of Diderot’s thought and by his courage.” —Washington Post
“Making sense of these mercurial works is not easy, and situating them in such a life as Diderot’s is even more challenging, so it is remarkable that…Curran succeeds admirably in both regards…the most accessible version of the life and work of this protean figure…excellent.” —New York Review of Books
“Curran does a terrific job of sorting through the crazily complicated history of the Encyclopédie’s publication…[a] revivifying new book.” —The New Yorker
