Is the enlightenment best seen as a single movement or as a series of related movements?

The core movement was based in France and Voltaire and Descartes are probably its best-known representatives. But even that core movement was heavily influenced by famous non-French Enlightenment thinkers like Immanuel Kant, Spinoza and john Locke. At the same time there were several other Enlightenment movements, like in Scotland, Russia, Poland, North America and Spain.

So it's really a series of related movements in the 18th century.