Human Intelligence

Episode
Collectors: Denis Diderot
Broadcast Info
2025 (14 mins)
Description
Naomi Alderman looks at the remarkable way Denis Diderot connected ideas and people. In 18th-century Paris, he edited one of the very first encyclopaedias: twenty-eight volumes with tens of thousands of articles on everything from the concept of liberty to cutting-edge medical research, the manufacture of silk stockings and a recipe for apricot jam. Diderot was the perfect man for the job - energised by veering from one subject to the next and undeterred by fierce opposition from the Church or even a government ban on the entire project.
Genre
History

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Human Intelligence". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/251958 (Accessed 24 Dec 2025)