The Book Prize Index

Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World

Roy Porter

For generations the traditional focus for those wishing to understand the roots of the modern world has been France on the eve of the Revolution. Porter certainly acknowledges France's importance, but here makes an overwhelming case for consideringBritain the true home of modernity - a country driven by an exuberance, diversity and power of invention comparable only to twentieth-century America. Porter immerses the reader in a society which, recovering from the horrors of the Civil War and decisively reinvigorated by the revolution of 1688, had emerged as something new and extraordinary - a society unlike any other in the world.

HistoryHistory · high confidenceHistory81 signalsLlm Classifier: History -> HistoryGoogle Books: History -> HistoryKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryAmerican Civil WarWar & Military StrategyRegional & Local History

Award History

1 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Wolfson History PrizeMajor2001WinnerOfficial source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    • Britain86%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    The roots of the modern world are better explained by Britain than by France, since Britain—revitalized after the 1688 revolution—developed a society driven by invention, diversity, and power.

    Model confidence 78%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    38 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.