OPINION - The End of Enlightenment review: the chaotic and bloody real story of the famous age

Some ideas are too successful for their own good. They take flight from their original context and are capacious to a dangerous degree. The Enlightenment, Richard Whatmore contends in this book, is just such an idea. Well yes, since it appears to describe a state of mind rather than, say, a single, big thought (like “free trade”). We might think of another state-of-mind idea that also entails a very contested set of beliefs — “woke”.