Bourgeois Enlightenment revivified.

This article examines the relationship between the French Enlightenment and the rise of commercial capitalism, arguing that Enlightenment writing was deeply intertwined with the eighteenth-century consumer revolution through shared practices of self-cultivation. It critiques prior scholarship that emphasized the Enlightenment's compatibility with Old Regime structures, instead highlighting how Enlightenment authors engaged an expanding reading public by promoting personal autonomy and active intellectual participation. The article situates consumer culture—not limited to fashion but encompassing a broad range of goods and cultural products—as central to shaping new social experiences that challenged traditional hierarchies and fostered social critique, particularly benefiting the upper Third Estate, or emerging bourgeoisie. It concludes that while the Enlightenment was not exclusively bourgeois, it contributed to conditions that later defined bourgeois class identity and social transformation in France.