Why the Enlightenment Matters

Iona Italia talks to lawyer and historian Adam Wakeling about the enduring importance of Enlightenment values and how to defend them today.

Adam Wakeling and Iona Italia

Jun 10, 2026

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*Weimar's Courtyard of the Muses* (1860) by Theobald von Oer, depicting the poets and thinkers of Weimar Classicism — including Schiller, Wieland, Herder, and Goethe — gathered in an idealized garden s…

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A guest post by

Adam Wakeling

Australian writer and historian, author of Stern Justice: The Forgotten Story of Australia, Japan, and the Pacific War Crimes Trials, and Why the Enlightenment Matters: The Shift in Our Thinking that Made the Modern World.