This book contains twelve essays by prominent historians from the Netherlands, Belgium and the United States on the early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic. In the wake of the increased awareness of the importance of this particular period for the European Enlightenment as a whole, they focus on Cartesianism, Spinozism and Empiricism, the three main schools of thought that made up its philosophical profile. The first part of the book highlights the academic infrastructure of the Dutch Republic and the theological response to the Radical Enlightenment. The second and third parts concentrate on the philosophical and the scientific developments in the Dutch Republic from 1650 to 1750. The final part of this book deals with the international proliferation of the Dutch Radical Enlightenment and with the way in which its main protagonists have been ignored by Dutch historiography.

Contributors include: Wiep van Bunge, Andrew Fix, Jonathan Israel, Eric Jorink, Henri Krop, Wijnand Mijnhardt, Han van Ruler, Paul Schuurman, Geert Vanpaemel, Hans de Waardt, Ernestine van der Wall, and Michiel Wielema.