Over the course of the eighteenth century, a series of famines and economic crises deepened wealth inequality and narrowed access to political power on both sides of the Atlantic. As the growing influence of the public sphere and Enlightenment ideas of equality and liberty shaped opposition to...

Over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the public sphere became an increasingly important component in the spread and development of Enlightenment ideas. As networks of informal socialization and intellectual exchange, coffeehouses provided a setting in which people from all...

The eighteenth century marked the beginning of a new spirit of intellectual exchange in Europe known as the Enlightenment. Inspired by the Scientific Revolution’s spirit of critical thinking, the ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and the legacy of Muslim, Greek, and Indian scientific foundations,...