ABSTRACT
Historical writing in the Enlightenment had rationalistic and often polemical objectives in major centers like Britain, France, and some of the German states. With those biases noted, historians sought to expand the range of inquiry and displayed a critical attitude toward available evidence. This was possible because thought and inquiry were conducted with less interference from state and church authorities than in the past, a sign that society was becoming more secularized. More fundamental was the emergence of a common language of proof accepted and used across national boundaries, a consequence of universally acknowledged advances in science since the seventeenth century.
