Voltaire

Voltaire is a monument to the Enlightenment; he has been immortalized in the Panthéon and despised as a destroyer of the old established order. After the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks in 2015, his "Treatise on Tolerance" became one of the best-selling books in France. And yet, the great philosopher is a stranger. Volker Reinhardt rereads his giant oeuvre and the sources, uncovering a bon vivant who always kept his escape routes in sight. Voltaire attained wealth by outsmarting a lottery, researched nature together with a female physicist, duped the Versailles court, annoyed Frederick the Great, fought against the hypocritical church, brought judicial scandals to light, poached Geneva's watchmakers for his own miniature empire, and pursued Rousseau with a sarcasm that knew no bounds. Volker Reinhardt tells the story of an adventurer in search of freedom who, in a world steeped in crisis, cultivated his garden with sharp wit, biting ridicule, and humanitarian tolerance, holding up a mirror to our own time.