Diderot's Politics

I t is only relatively recently that serious attempts have been made to rescue Diderot's political writings from obscurity and neglect, and ascribe to the ideas expressed therein their due place in the panoply of his intellectual and artistic achievements. This has been largely made possible by the transference of the Fonds Vandeul from Diderot's descendants to the Bibliotheque Nationale in 1954. This important collection of manuscripts and papers, to which scholars have previously had very inadequate access, contains the bulk of the political writings, most of which had either never been published, or were only obtainable in badly prepared or rare editions. In recent years, however, excellent critical editions of the most impor- tant political texts have appeared; the Textes Politiques edited by Yves Benot, and the Oeuvres Politiques and the Memoires pour Catherine II edited by Paul Verniere are all notable contributions. Meanwhile Jacques Proust has written a major thesis on Diderot et l'Encyclopedie which con- tains a detailed study of Diderot's political ideas during the years he de- voted to the construction of that great intellectual monument.Most re- cently Yves Benot has published a general work with an important study of Diderot's hostility to European colonial policies, Diderot, de l' atheisme a l'anticolonialisme. Furthermore, Diderot's contributions to the three editions of Raynal's Histoire des deux Indes have been identified with virtual certainty by Michele Duchet and Hans Wolpe, thereby opening up a further valuable source for his political ideas.