Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely

"A vivacious biography of the prophetic and sympathetic philosopher who along with Voltaire and Rousseau built the foundations of the modern world, and travelled as far as Russia to enlighten the Tsarina Catherine the Great. Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclope die into existence. But his most compelling and personal writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his most daring books for posterity-for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings that he left behind after his death, Diderot dreamed of natural selection before Darwin, the Oedipus complex before Freud, and genetic manipulation centuries before Dolly the Sheep was born.