The early German Enlightenment is seen as a reform movement that broke free from traditional ties without falling into anti-Christian and extremist positions, on the basis of secular natural law, an anti-metaphysical epistemology, and new social ethics. But how did the works which were radical and critical of religion during this period come about? And how do they relate to the dominant 'moderate' Enlightenment? Martin Mulsow offers fresh and surprising answers to these questions by reconstructing the emergence and dissemination of some of the radical writings created between 1680 and 1720. The Hidden Origins of the German Enlightenment explores the little-known freethinkers, persecuted authors, and secretly circulating manuscripts of the era, applying an interdisciplinary perspective to the German Enlightenment. By engaging with these cross-regional, clandestine texts, a dense and highly original picture emerges of the German early Enlightenment, with its strong links with the experience of the rest of Europe.

‘The value of Mulsow’s micro-histories does not lie in their generalizations. Indeed, they might be construed as critiques of the possibility of generalization at all. We might begin with a simple question - for example, whether the rise of seventeenth-century natural law was a response to moral skepticism - that has enjoyed a history of equally simple answers. But Mulsow then shows that the question is not so simple after all, exploring the varieties of natural law at play, the complexity of moral skepticism, and the heterogeneity of texts and contexts essential to understanding the intellectual world of the early Enlightenment. The results are both delightful and dizzying … an excellent book…’

Jonathan Sheehan Source: The Journal of Modern History