In the recent animated TED-Ed lesson “The Controversial Origins of the Encyclopedia”, educator Addison Anderson explains the complicated French history of the very first encyclopedia.
The first encyclopedia contained 70,000 entries and over 20,000,000 words. It was broken into 35 volumes written over the course of 3 decades. It was also banned by Louis XV and Pope Clement XIII. But why was this encyclopedia so controversial, and who wrote it in the first place?
