This episode of Ben Franklin's world is brought to you by Cornell University Press.

When I used to read books that mentioned the Enlightenment, I had to wonder whether the people the author referred to

recognize that they were participating in a broader movement,

or whether historians invented the term Enlightenment as a category of analysis.

That is, I wondered all of this until I read John Dixon's The Enlightenment of Cadwell-Dergen, which was published by our friends at Cornell University Press.

You may remember John from episode 109, in which he explained that Cadwell-der-Colden, a Scottish educated doctor, scientist, and philosopher who settled

in New York during the 1720s understood well that he was part of a larger international movement

to explore and increase knowledge of the natural world.

Now, many remember Colden is that old unpopular loyalist governor of New York.

But John shows us that Colden was much more than that.

Colden was also the gentleman scholar who built a transatlantic network of correspondence

that included Benjamin Franklin and Carl Anaeus.

And in addition to building that network, he also pioneered colonial botany, created new theories of

animal and human physiology, developed new principles of physics, and authored an influential

history of the Iroquois peoples.

John Dixon's detailed look into the life of Cadwell-Dor Colden

made the Enlightenment accessible to me in ways that it just hadn't been before,

because it showed the Enlightenment at work on the ground through the life of one person.

Check out our conversation with John Dixon about the Enlightenment and Cadwell-Colden in episode 109.

You'll find a link to it in the show notes and in your Ben Franklin's

world app. And if you like what you hear and want to know more about the

Enlightenment, visit Ben Franklin's world.com slash Cornell where you'll find a

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