The Enlightenment was a movement of intellectual change that penetrated every European country as well as North America during the eighteenth century.

Ulrich Im Hof studied at the University of Basle, and since 1965 has been lecturer in Swiss history and general modern History at the University of Bonn, as well as the Director of the Department of Swiss History at the University of Bern. Among his publications are Das gesellige Jahrhundert. Gesellschaft und Gesellschaften in Seitalter der Aufklarung (1982) and Geschichte der Schweiz (1987).