Unearthing the Foundations of the German Enlightenment: the Recent Soundings of Martin Mulsow

A widely esteemed and decorated scholar who currently directs the Gotha Research Centre at the University of Erfurt, where he is also Professor in the Cultures of Knowledge in Modern Europe, Martin Mulsow has been working for over two decades to better understand the early modern origins of contemporary European thought. The Hidden Origins of the German Enlightenment , his most recent English publication, is best understood as the latest installment in what is already a three-volume history of the origins of the German Enlightenment. He indicates here that a fourth book has already been finished in German and awaits translation and publication in English in the manner of his other books in this series. The bibliography lists over sixty publications authored by Mulsow, and while his work does not appear to be finished, his recent books in English mark the apex of a scholarly arc that is noteworthy for its persistent questioning of familiar interpretive paradigms and an insistent drive to offer new insights into the origins and dynamics of European Enlightenment history.