The 197-chapter work resulted from fifteen years of research by Voltaire at Cirey, Brussels, Paris, Lunéville, Prussia, Alsace and Geneva.

[6] Voltaire credited his intellectual partner Émilie du Châtelet as an influence: She had criticised works of history that were dull lists of facts.

At first, he anonymously published Examen critique ou Réfutation du livre des moeurs ("Critical examination or refutation of the book of customs").

Over the next twenty years, he wrote a succession of revised editions of this work, which was translated into Italian, German, Polish, and Portuguese.

Voltaire, in turn, responded with criticisms of Nonnotte in revised editions of the Essai and in his Eclaircissements historiques ("Historical clarifications").