This course examines the main currents of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century thought as they offer a prelude to modernity. Among the topics to be explored are absolutism and the rise of the nation-state, individualism and the birth of the modern economy, the embrace of politics and culture, the triumph of the scientific method, constitutionalism, revolution, and modernity. Thinkers to be read and studied include Hobbes, Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Smith.