In an elegant, eminently readable work, one of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment–an extraordinary time bursting with new ideas about human nature, politics, society, and religion--from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and America.Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy and wisdom of the British, exemplified in such thinkers as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Edmund Burke, as well as the unique and enduring contributions of the American Founders. It is their Enlightenments, she argues, that created a social ethic–humane, compassionate, and realistic–that still resonates strongly today, in America perhaps even more than in Europe. The Roads to Modernity is a remarkable and illuminating contribution to the history of ideas.

格特鲁德·希梅尔法布（Gertrude Himmelfarb）

美国著名的女历史学家、纽约市大学研究院的荣退历史教授。现在和她的丈夫、有“美国新保守主义之父”之称的Irving Kristol共同生活于华盛顿。

她的主要著作包括：《维多利亚时代的心智》、《贫困的理念：工业化早期的英格兰》、《新旧历史学》（新星出版社，2007年版）等。