Richard Whatmore reads the late eighteenth century very much as a warning to the present. Some of the greatest Enlightenment thinkers were despairing of the fact that their fight against prejudice and fanaticism, against the power or princes and priests, had led to a mercantile state living in a perpetual state of war, and a society whose fanaticism had turned into a blind worship of freedom, individuality, and rights. Richard is a fascinating sparring partner for ideas ranging from a critical moment in intellectual history featuring thinkers like David Hume, Adam Smith, or Mary Wollstonecraft to Friedrich Hayek and the very present and political resonances of these thoughts. Faced the cruelty of the French revolution and the reality of mercantilism, colonialism and a political sphere dominated by the interests of private entrepreneurs and shareholders, a generation of intellectuals had to construct new strategies in the face of disaster.