About Prof. J.I. Israel
Jonathan I. Israel is Professor of Modern History at the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study. From 1985 to 2000 he held the chair for Dutch History at University College London. He is the author of over a hundred scholarly papers and a dozen books on the early modern history of Europe, including The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477-1806 (1995), generally considered to be the finest comprehensive interpretation of the Dutch Republic available.
Recently he has concentrated on intellectual history, arguing that neither England nor France gave birth to the Enlightenment, but that the first and crucial leap toward modernity was in fact made in the Dutch Republic. His Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750 (2001) aims to rewrite completely the story of the European Enlightenment. According to Israel, the Dutch philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677), should be credited with being the first truly modern thinker.
Professor Israel’s most recent book, the sequel to Radical Enlightenment, is entitled Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 1670-1752 (2006).
