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Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 by Jonathan I. Israel My rating: 5 of 5 stars Excellent book and ideas, with some flaws I found irritating. First, some quotes are provided without translations - I wish my French was better, and I have no real understanding of Dutch - and it would have been nice to link to the translation, if not had it displayed in the text. Second, the history is very detailed, a bit too much for my taste, and I would have preferred a somewhat higher-level view of the actions of the various actors in the enlightenment drama, although as I pored on, the complexity of the story was very engaging. View all my reviews

I was active in a thread on the NY Times site, discussing how lifestyle choices correlate with lifestyle choice. First Post: This is nothing new. Diversity, is both cause and effect of openness to experience. Open-minded people, as per the Big Five and/or OCEAN personality inventories, tend to be liberal, and their lifestyle choices reflect that. They tend to get educated, move to cities, and enjoy a greater variation in travel, reading, and music. They enjoy urban, dense environments with a range of identities. People with low openness, or for the sake of simplicity, the close-minded, tend to stick close to home, favor family and church, and tend to distrust urban, diverse environments. This dimension seems to also informally correlate with disgust and fear of the unknown, something seemingly related to a fear of the foreign.  You likely have guessed, or assume, that I am very liberal, and I am an fairly empathetic person, but I would not find engaging with such people enjoy...