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"A few years ago I started to notice that the word 'Enlightenment' was =
cropping up a good deal in political and cultural debate. For example =
influential commentators and journalists regularly described the 'War on =
Terror' in terms of a wider struggle between 'Enlightenment values' and =
their irrational enemies. Secular liberals complained that Christian =
fundamentalists were undermining America's enlightened inheritance. The =
defenders of conventional medicine squared off against New Age healers =
and mystics. On campus avowedly anti-Enlightenment post-modernists were =
supposedly undermining traditional scholarship. According to writers =
like Richard Dawkins, Francis Wheen, and Dick Taverne a rising tide of =
mumbo-jumbo was threatening to overwhelm us.

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I wanted to see whether it made sense to think of the Enlightenment in =
these terms, as something to be defended against external, self-declared =
enemies. And I wanted to look again at what it might mean to be =
enlightened in the present day. Was it enough to quote a bit of Voltaire =
and fret about the rising tide of unreason? Or do the ideas of the =
historical Enlightenment have a more interesting role to play?

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I am convinced, and here try to show, that our understanding of the =
Enlightenment has become far too narrow and that often the ideas =
associated with it are being used to mystify the public and to protect =
unaccountable power.=20

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So, what was the Enlightenment? And what might it be now? The Threat to =
Reason is an attempt to answer these two questions."

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AUTHOR: Dan Hind has worked in publishing since 1998. He is currently =
editorial director of Bodley Head. His journalism has appeared in the =
Guardian, New Scientist and the Times Literary Supplement. The Threat to =
Reason is his first book. He lives in London.

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*     Publication: 13th June 2008

*     Binding: Paperback

*     ISBN: 978-1-84467-253-0

*     Price: =A37.99 / $15.95

*     Extent: 192 pages

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