Suggested Reading and Media Resources

• Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge. Nature, Empire, and Nation: Explorations of the History of Science in the Iberian World. 2006. Explores the role of Spain and Spanish America in the development of science in the early modern period.

• Curran, Andrew S. The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment. 2013. Examines how Enlightenment thinkers transformed traditional thinking about people of African descent into ideas about biological racial difference.

• Dear, Peter. Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500 –1700, 2d ed. 2009. An accessible and well-illustrated introduction to the Scientific Revolution.

• Delbourgo, James, and Nicholas Dew, eds. Science and Empire in the Atlantic World. 2008. A collection of essays examining the relationship between the Scientific Revolution and the imperial expansion of European powers across the Atlantic.

• Ellis, Markman. The Coffee House: A Cultural History. 2004. An engaging study of the rise of the coffeehouse and its impact on European cultural and social life.

• Massie, Robert K. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. 2012. Recounts the life story of Catherine, from obscure German princess to enlightened ruler of Russia.

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• McMahon, Darrin M. Happiness: A History. 2006. Discusses how worldly pleasure became valued as a duty of individuals and societies in the Enlightenment.

• Messbarger, Rebecca. The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini. 2010. The life of an Italian woman artist and scientist who showed the opportunities and constraints for eighteenth-century women.

• Robertson, John. The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples, 1680–1760. 2005. A comparative study of Enlightenment movements in Scotland and Naples, emphasizing commonalities between these two small kingdoms on the edges of Europe.

• Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution. 1996. A concise and well-informed general introduction to the Scientific Revolution.

• Sorkin, David. Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment. 1996. A brilliant study of the Jewish philosopher and of the role of religion in the Enlightenment.

• Galileo’s Battle for the Heavens (PBS, 2002). Recounts the story of Galileo’s struggle with the Catholic Church over his astronomical discoveries, featuring re-enactments of key episodes in his life.

• Newton’s Dark Secrets (PBS, 2005). Explores Isaac Newton’s fundamental scientific discoveries alongside his religious faith and practice of alchemy.

• Catherine the Great (A&E, 1995). A made-for-television movie starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as the German princess who becomes Catherine the Great.

• Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1988). Based on a 1782 novel, the story of two aristocrats who cynically manipulate others, until one of them falls in love with a chaste widow chosen as his victim.

• Longitude (A&E, 2000). A television miniseries that follows the parallel stories of an eighteenth-century clockmaker striving to find a means to measure longitude at sea and a modern-day veteran who restores the earlier man’s clocks.

• Ridicule (Patrice Leconte, 1996). When a provincial nobleman travels to the French court in the 1780s to present a project to drain a malarial swamp in his district, his naïve Enlightenment ideals incur the ridicule of decadent courtiers.

• The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. A collaborative project to translate the Encyclopedia edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert into English, with searchable entries submitted by students and scholars and vetted by experts. quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/

• The Hermitage Museum. The Web site of the Russian Hermitage Museum founded by Catherine the Great in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, with virtual tours of the museum’s rich collections. http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage

• Mapping the Republic of Letters. A site hosted by Stanford University showcasing projects using mapping software to create spatial visualizations based on correspondence and travel of members of the eighteenth-century Republic of Letters. republicofletters.stanford.edu/