A unifying enlightenment

"This book is the result of a research process of long durée. Entirely original material rubs shoulders with other work that has already seen the light of day in the form of previous versions of articles and chapters in books, normally in languages other than English. Some of the earlier material formed part of a wider research project that was completed in 2017 and for which the author was awarded a Ph.D. in History by the Complutense University of Madrid. However, there were many other incentives for writing the book and it has benefitted from finding numerous allies along the way. It has also had the enormous good fortune to come to fruition in an eminently international framework, under various research projects"--