This volume presents a selection of the political writings of one of the most significant figures of the French enlightenment. It contains the most important articles that Diderot contributed to the Encyclopédie, of which he was principal editor, the complete texts of his Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville and Observations sur le Nakaz (translated into English here for the first time), and a substantial number of his contributions to Raynal's Histoire des Deux Indes. The editors' introduction puts these works in context, showing their essential features and underlying coherence.