A revolt against the Enlightenment’s legacy has marked the academic culture of a generation. Leftists today often criticize the Radical Enlightenment thesis, arguing that those who advance it privilege the force of ideas in history over material forces. They accuse its proponents of elevating philosophy written by elite European men over the sacrifices made by ordinary people in the course of mass struggle.

For example, a recent Viewpoint article alleges that Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment series paradoxically rejects theory because he holds ideas in such high regard. Like most criticism of Israel’s scholarship, Asad Haider’s intervention is the result of an echo chamber: he recites prominent book reviews rather than the texts themselves.

Indeed, even a cursory reading of Israel gives lie to these truisms. As an intellectual historian, he focuses on the role ideas play in history, but he also devotes page after page to topics like “women, philosophy, and sexuality,” “sexual freedom,” “censorship and culture,” “revolutionary conspiracy,” “criminal trials,” “Dutch colonialism in Asia,” “the Enlightenment in Japan,” “Anti-Philosophie and the diffusion of radical literature,” “secret societies,” “liberation movements in exile,” and the “‘General Revolution’ as a global process.”