And my interest in history was, and remains, very strong: what I wanted was to understand certain things better by understanding them psychoanalytically.

De Dijn argues that Gay in The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (1966) first formulated the interpretation that the Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern liberal democracies. The Bridge of Criticism: Dialogues on the Enlightenment 1970. Scholarship
According to the American Historical Association's Award Citation Gay's range of "scholarly achievements is truly remarkable".

Gay received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. Peter Gay was born in Berlin Germany in 1923 and emigrated to the United States in 1941. He is the author of more than twenty-five books including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation a multi-volume award winner; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968) a bestseller; and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).