Prose of the world: Denis Diderot and the periphery of Enlightenment

"Philosopher and translator, critic and writer, art agent and encyclopedist: Denis Diderot was one of the defining figures of the movement that has gone down in history as the European Enlightenment. But what is the vanishing point of his diverse oeuvre, which, unlike the works of his contemporaries Voltaire and Rousseau, Schiller, Kant and Hume, is characterized by an almost centrifugal dynamic? Alongside scenes from Diderot's turbulent and moving life and close readings of his key works, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht explores this question, developing a new approach to this extraordinary intellectual"--