Standard accounts of nineteenth-century German philosophy often begin with Kant and assess philosophers after him in light of their responses to Kantian idealism. In Continental Idealism, Paul Redding argues that the story of German idealism begins with Leibniz. Paul Redding's Continental Idealism is a lucid account of the development of German philosophy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a contribution to current philosophical debates. Its originality lies in stressing the foundational importance of Leibniz, and in offering clear and compelling explanations of the different kinds of metaphysical commitments within idealist philosophy. Redding casts new light on the relation of Hegel to Kant and Fichte, situates the German Romantics in this body of thought, and traces the subversion of these traditions in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Redding is also attentive to contemporary philosophical issues, arguing that idealism, properly understood, remains viable as an alternative to the reductive naturalism that characterises much current thinking. - Douglas Moggach, University of Ottawa