About the book: 2013 / The authors of the volume introduce readers to the picture of the world in the 18th century that has developed in modern historical science, as well as the problems of the latest research, dedicated to the fate of the main regions in this century. The traditional view of the Enlightenment as a cultural phenomenon, the action of which was limited to European countries and their sphere of influence, was enriched by the idea of ​​this era as a qualitatively new stage in the global interaction of cultures. The rapid development of contacts between Europe and other civilizations gave contemporaries rich food for thought about the unity and diversity of the destinies of countries and peoples. Do the values ​​closely associated with the European heritage of the 18th century - the practice of freedom, human rights, faith in progress - have an absolute and universal character? Is it worth fighting for their distribution? Or should we recognize the inevitability of the coexistence of different value systems, not only in the world, but also within individual countries? How, in this case, will they be integrated into the process of globalization? These questions, rooted in the Age of Enlightenment, are especially relevant today. For historians and a wider circle of readers.