This book offers a fresh perspective on early modern philosophy by highlighting Pierre Bayle's engagement with non-Christian sources. If our major political, ethical, and epistemic doctrines were solely rooted in Christian genealogies, it would seem necessary to include Christianity in the European Constitution. However, this book reveals a different story. The anthropological insights gained from encounters with other lands not only enriched the ethical and political discussions of philosophers, historians, and literati, but also paralleled the incorporation of empirical data from these regions into fields like medicine, botany, or navigation. These accounts became the building blocks for ethical and political thought, a wellspring of new ideas, thereby making the understanding of other cultures and religions pivotal in reflecting upon the specificities of Europe. Pierre Bayle's work exemplifies this transformative influence.

Marta García-Alonso is a historian of political ideas and has dedicated her research to religious reformers and French-speaking philosophers of the 16th and 17th centuries. She has written papers for History of European Ideas, Intellectual History Review, History of Political Thought, and coordinated works for Honoré Champion (Les Lumières radicales et la politique, 2017). Among her latest writings are 'La hermenéutica bíblica hobbesiana del Leviatán', Estudios Eclesiásticos 98 (2023), pp. 305-337; 'La Boétie, Étienne de' in Sellers M., Kirste S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Springer, Dordrecht, 2022; 'Persian Theology and the Checkmate of Christian Theology: Bayle and the Problem of Evil' in Visions of Persia in the Age of Enlightenment, W. Mannies, J.C. Laursen, C. Masroory (eds.), Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, Liverpool University Press (2021), pp. 75-100; 'Calvin's Political Theology in Context', Intellectual History Review 31 (2021), pp. 541-56.

John Christian Laursen is Professor of the Graduate Division in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside. He has been writing on Bayle off and on since 1998, and his respect for Bayle has only grown over the years. His most recent edited books are _Clandestine Philosophy: New Studies on Subversive Manuscripts in Early Modern Europe, 1680-1823_ , co-edited with Gianni Paganini and Margaret Jacob (University of Toronto Press, 2020) and _Persia in the Enlightenment_, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, co-edited with Cyrus Masroori and Whitney Mannies (Liverpool University Press, 2021).