As editor of the vast French "Encyclopedia", Denis Diderot (1713-84) had a unique vantage-point on the world of the Enlightenment. This book takes account of the full range of Diderot's writing, from politics to the theatre, from physiology to painting. It stresses the critical impulse which lies at the heart of his work, goes on to examine his attempts at a coherent new system, founded on a natural order, and then looks at the ways in which the variety of the real world frustrated his desire for synthesis. Throughout this study particular attention is paid to the complexity of his writing, with its manifold and often contradictory voices, and to the nature of Diderot's demands on his readers. The final chapter discusses the palace of art in his thinking and the relation between his aesthetic theories and his own practice as a writer. -- From publisher's description.