A Hazardous Materialist: La Mettrie's Life and Ideas

A "bold atheist", a "renowned glutton", an "enemy of all doctors", a "mad imagination", an "overly joyful man", a purveyor of "incoherent lunacy" -- and that's just what Voltaire thought about him. Several times made a refugee for his writings, a man who stood alone against both Christianity and the medical establishment, La Mettrie is a lost icon of free speech and moral courage.

Instead, both during his life and for generations after death, La Mettrie became the iconic "bad atheist" - a f...