Journal of the History of Ideas

Barbarism and Religion, the first half of J. G. A. Pocock’s study of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, was designed to set Gibbon’s work in context, using a method developed in Cambridge, by juxtaposing his narrative to many others—to some but not all of which he explicitly referred. Helena Rosenblatt has misunderstood Pocock’s intent, which was to show that Gibbon’s work took much of its inspiration for its treatment of Christianity from a world of ecclesiastical scholarship. Though Pierre Force shows that Voltaire’s erudition was richer than has been thought, he and Gibbon pursued very different forms of learning. And though Pocock agrees with Jonathan Israel that many thinkers challenged traditional Christian theology, their efforts were far more varied than Israel holds. Brief studies of Jean LeClerc and Ralph call Israel’s vision of radical Enlightenment into question.