Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

This is a new release of the original 1929 edition.

Henry Martyn (1781-1812) was an Anglican priest and missionary to the peoples of India and Persia. Born in Truro, Cornwall, he attended St John's College, Cambridge and after being ordained a priest in the Church of England he became a chaplain for the British East India Company. He arrived in India in April 1806 where he preached and studied linguistics, later translating the whole of the New Testament into Urdu, Persian and Judaeo-Persic. He also translated the Pslams into Persian and the Book of Common Prayer into Urdu. From India, he set out for Bushire, Shiraz, Isfahan, and then on to Tabriz where he had hoped to present his translation of the New Testament to the Shah. On his return journey to England in 1812 he was seized with fever, and unable to continue further was forced to stop in Tokat, although the plague was raging there. He wrote his final diary entry on October 6, 1812 and died ten days later. Martyn is remembered for his courage, selflessness, and religious devotion. His love for Lydia Grenfell, who he had hoped would join him in India as his wife, is well-documented in his diary and surviving letters to her, which are quoted in George Smith's lengthy biography, first published in 1892, as are extracts from Lydia's own diary. The biography makes extensive use of Martyn's papers and private letters, now held at Westminster College, Cambridge, and draws on reminiscences of his associates. Smith was a Scottish historian and geographer who spent his working life in India, moving to Calcutta in 1855 where he became successively Fellow of the University and their Examiner, editor of the Calcutta Review, and from 1860 official India correspondent for the Times newspaper in Britain. By the 1870s he had returned to Scotland where he was editor of the journal Friends of India, Secretary of the United Free Church of Scotland, and Vice President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Smith was the author of several biographies of religious figures and missionaries to India, and also books on Indian politics and geography.

One of the most persistent, troubling, and divisive of the ideological divisions within modernity is the struggle over the Enlightenment and its legacy. Much of the difficulty is owed to a general failure among scholars to consider how history, philosophy, and politics work together. Rethinking the Enlightenment bridges these disciplinary divides. Recent work by historians has now called into question many of the clichés that still dominate scholarly understandings of the Enlightenment’s literary, philosophical, and political culture. Yet this work has so far had little impact on the reception of the Enlightenment, its key players, debates, and ideas in the disciplines that most rely on its legacy, namely, philosophy and political science. Edited by Geoff Boucher and Henry Martyn Lloyd, Rethinking the Enlightenment makes the case for connecting new work in intellectual history with fresh understandings of ‘Continental’ philosophy and political theory. In doing so, in this collection moves towards a critical self-understanding of the present.