The End of Enlightenment cover art

The End of Enlightenment

Empire, Commerce, Crisis

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A landmark study of the Enlightenment from an eminent historian

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.

Returning us to the tumultuous events and ideas of the eighteenth century, and digging deep into the thought of the men and women who defined their age, The End of Enlightenment is a lucid exploration of disillusion and intellectual transformation, a brilliant meditation on our continued assumptions about the past, and a glimpse of the different ways our world might be structured.

©2023 Richard Whatmore (P)2023 Penguin Audio History Movements Philosophy Capitalism French Revolution Imperialism Middle Ages Socialism Latin American
All stars
Most relevant
Knowing there are plenty of people only too happy to do a hatchet job, most of them unqualified and unhelpful, I should say that this might be my first negative review. This is an excellent book and that's why I'm taking licence to warn people off this terrible "performance". If ever there was a narrator who loved the sound of his own voice more, I imagine he's well-fermented by now, under a pile of decomposing cabbages.

Yes, I listened to the sample before buying. I didn't get far enough into the complete recording to hear it. Perhaps it was later in the book and our ack-torr had grown bored with his subject matter, wanted the job over with, so ditched the excruciating affectation and started reading it straight. The man belongs on the stage, where at least he could be heckled. David Hume's name was removed from a building at Edinburgh University not long ago on grounds that were plain daft, never mind spurious. I imagine the offended students are graduates now, working in publishing, producing this sort of thing.

My apologies to Mr Whatmore. I look forward to getting my copy of his book in print.

Just buy it in print

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Every audiobook has someone complaining about the narration in the reviews. I've learnt to largely ignore these. Listening at 1.5 or 1.7 speed tends to make them all manageable. But this one is different. Whatever speed I try and play it, the narration is so poor it's almost impossible to not be distracted by it. Real shame. Really interesting book.

please re-record

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
...owing to the quality of the 'performance'. Where to start with this - first, the narration is melon-twistingly slow, with long....pauses....between.....words, as if the reader was cautiously attempting the recording in a single take. Or maybe he just had a big lunch and forgot his gaviscon. Then there is the inexplicable insertion of non-existent punctuation which breaks up the flow of the text. Chuck in some risible accents, which pompously and bizarrely effect voices from the 18th century, and I could suffer no more after a couple of hours.

Sympathies to the author who must be feeling badly let down by his publisher.

one of the very few audio books I couldn't finish...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.