The Great Courses: VOLTAIRE AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE ENLIGHTMENT (2001) AA

The "Father of the Enlightenment"

This series of audio lectures by Professor Alan Kors is probably not for the average movie goer.  However, if you are interested in history . . . you must listen to these lectures . . . because they talk about the ideas that came to the fore during a period (the 1700's) called the Enlightenment.  

Because I didn't study this aspect of history in college, I didn't realize that many of the ideas and concepts of the United States founders . . . that appear in our Bill Of Rights . . . came DIRECTLY from Enlightenment thinking and writings. I don't think anything like the First Amendent was created in the 1700's . . . except in our Constution.  It was, and still is, revolutionary.

A leading intellectual historian, Alan Charles Kors shares with you his view of Voltaire as one of the most intriguing, influential, and elusive thinkers of the modern world. Focusing on the deepest, most enduring aspects of Voltaire's work and thought, but never losing sight of the colorful, fascinating man himself, Professor Kors sketches for you a vibrant, thought-provoking vision of Voltaire as "the father of the Enlightenment" and one of the great literary personalities of all time.