The gloomy, anguished fears and concerns of the great English writers of the Civil War period (Milton, Bunyan et all) are in many ways completely baffling and alien to us and yet 150 years later with writers such as Byron we feel totally at home with their view of the world. How did this extraordinary change happen? How did we become modern? In this sequel to the prize-winning Enlightenment, Roy Porter completes his lifetime's work, offering an account of the writings of some of the most attractive figures ever to write in English.