• Introduction; Prelude: the varieties of early modern historiography: Part I. Constructing The Enlightened Narrative: Section I. Pietro Giannone: Jurist and Libertin in the Central Mediterranean; 1. Civil and ecclesiastical history; 2. Popes and emperors: from the Isaurians to the Hohenstaufen; 3. Angevins, Spaniards and Gallicans: to the brink of enlightenment; 4. Gibbon and Giannone: narrative, philosophy, erudition; Section II. Voltaire: Neo-Classicst and Philosophe in the Enlightened World-Picture; 1. On the horizons of Europe: the kings of the north; 2. Courtly monarchy as the instrument of Englightenment: the Siecle de Louis XIV; 3. Asia and the dechristianisation of history: the Siecle and the Essai sur les Moeurs; 4. The Christian millennium in Europe: the Essai sur les Moeurs; 5. The recovery of civil government, the rebirth of fanaticism, and the return to the Siecle; 6. Voltaire: the exasperating predecessor; Part II. The Historical Age and the Historical Nation: Section III. David Hume and the Philosophical History of England; 1. The problems of history in the Hanoverian kingdoms; 2. David Hume: the Essays as contemporary history; 3. The History of Great Britain: Hume's modern history; 4. England under the House of the Tudor: monarchy, Europe and enthusiasm; 5. Hume's History of England: the Enlightened narrative in retrospect; Section IV. William Robertson and the History of Europe; 1. The problems of history: the Scottish perspective; 2. Scotland and the progress of society; 3. The Reign of Charles V and the emergence of the European States; 4. Robertson: histories written and unwritten; Part III. The Progress of Civil Society: Section V. Adam Smith: Jurisprudence into History; 1. Moral philosophy and the stages of society; 2. Smith's Glasgow lectures: narrative and philosophical history; Section IV. Adam Ferguson: the Moderate as Machiavellian; 1. Ferguson's Essay: Siberia as the cradle of World history; 2. The Memoires Litteraires and the Remains of Japhet; 3. Scottish narrative: theoretical and civil history; Part IV. Intending the Decline and Fall: 1. The Enlightened narrative and the project of 1776; 2. 'Gibbon's dark ages:' the writings of 1765–72; 3. Beginning to write: the evidence of the autobiographies; Bibliographies; Index.

'Pocock manages to place Gibbon within these larger cosmopolitan movements without diminishing the historian's extraordinary accomplishment.' Tim Breen, New York Times Review of Books