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Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought is firmly established as the major student series of texts in political theory. It aims to make available all the most important texts in the history of political thought, from ancient Greece to the twentieth century, from throughout the world and from every political tradition. All the familiar classic texts are included, but the series seeks at the same time to enlarge the conventional canon through a global scope and by incorporating an extensive range of less well-known works and previously marginalised voices, many of them never before available in a modern English edition. Where possible, the texts are published in complete and unabridged form, and translations are specially commissioned for the series. However, where appropriate, abridged or tightly focused and thematic collections are offered instead. Each volume contains a critical introduction together with chronologies, biographical sketches, a guide to further reading and any necessary glossaries and textual apparatus. Overall, the series aims to provide the reader with an outline of the entire evolution of political thinking on a global scale.

  • General Editors: Quentin Skinner, Queen Mary University of London
  • Editorial Boards: Michael Cook, Princeton University, New Jersey, Hannah Dawson, King’s College London, Adom Getachew, University of Chicago, Emma Hunter, University of Edinburgh, Gabriel Paquette, University of Oregon, Andrew Sartori, New York University, Hilde de Weerdt, Universiteit Leiden

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118 results in Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought

Page 5 of 6

Spencer: Political Writings
  • Herbert Spencer
  • Edited by John Offer
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    21 October 1993
  • This book places Spencer's famous argument for political individualism in his The Man versus the State alongside his early The Proper Sphere of Government, out of which, after due gestation, emerged not only The Man versus the State but also Social Status and his all-embracing theory of evolution. Both are valuable as unyielding statements of anti-state political theory and as sources of perceptive comments on political events of the times. An introduction sets them in their context and examines their main themes. The book will be of interest to both undergraduates and specialists in politics, political theory, social policy, sociology and history.

Bacon: The History of the Reign of King Henry VII and Selected Works
  • Francis Bacon
  • Edited by Brian Vickers
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    19 February 1998
  • This is a major student edition of the text described as 'the first modern classic of English history'. Bacon's penetration into human motives, his life-long experience of politics and government, and his remarkable literary skills, render this History of the Reign of King Henry VII a major work of English literature and an important document in the history of political thought. The introduction places Bacon's History in the context of Renaissance historiography, revealing its debt to Tacitus, and shows Bacon's originality in re-ordering traditional material to make a coherent psychological analysis of the King's actions. In addition to the usual series features and supporting contextual material (including relevant Essays by Bacon), generous editorial footnotes explain the historical and political issues of the reign of Henry VII, and a substantial glossary clarifies Bacon's rich but sometimes unfamiliar vocabulary.

Price: Political Writings
  • Richard Price
  • Edited by D. O. Thomas
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    31 January 1992
  • Richard Price (1723-1791) was an eminent Welsh philosopher and Dissenting Minister. His political pamphlets won him considerable fame in the eighteenth century as a supporter of the American rebels in their struggle for independence, and for the enthusiasm with which he greeted the opening events of the French Revolution. It was this enthusiasm which provoked Edmund Burke into writing Reflections on the Revolution in France. Price is noteworthy as a defender of freedom of thought (especially on religious matters), as a proponent of parliamentary reform, and as an advocate of a minimalist conception of government. He espoused the doctrine of natural rights and the principle of self-government. This 1992 book is a collection of Price's most important pamphlets of the period 1759–89, and is accompanied by a comprehensive introduction putting Price's work in context, complete bibliographical material, a chronology, and biographical notes on persons mentioned in the texts.

Lawson: Politica sacra et civilis
  • George Lawson
  • Edited by Conal Condren
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    07 January 1993
  • Lawson's Politica is a systematic treatise on politics in church and state, and is arguably the most significant work of political theory to have been printed during the Restoration crisis of 1659–60. The work was widely discussed during the seventeenth century and its conceptual vocabulary applied in discussions of the Revolution of 1688–9, when it was also posthumously republished. Despite Lawson's fame, however, his work fell into relative obscurity during the eighteenth century but it has recently been the subject of renewed scholarly interest. Politica has been reassessed as both historically and theoretically significant, and Lawson's contextual and interpretative importance emphasised, as a writer who enriches our understanding of Hobbes and Locke. This new modern edition is the first to be based on, and to correct, the rare and badly printed edition of 1660 and the partially corrected edition of 1689. Containing full scholarly apparatus, it is designed to make this significant work accessible to students as well as specialists through a substantial introduction and notes, contextual material and bibliographical guide.

Marx: Later Political Writings
  • Karl Marx
  • Edited by Terrell Carver
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    18 January 1996
  • Marx: Later Political Writings, first published in 1996, brings together translations of Marx's most important texts in political philosophy written after 1848. Marx challenged political theory to its very fundamentals, as his works do not follow traditional models for exploring politics theoretically. In his introduction, Terrell Carver situates Marx in a politics of democratic constitutionalism and revolutionary communism. The works are presented here complete, according to the first editions or the earliest manuscript state, and include the Manifesto of the Communist Party, the Preface of 1859 to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, The Civil War in France, and the little-known Notes on Adolph Wagner. More than most political theorists, Marx made contemporary politics the focus for his theoretical work. He created a distinctive kind of political theory, and this volume makes it accessible today.

Bodin: On Sovereignty
  • Jean Bodin
  • Edited by Julian H. Franklin
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 April 1992
  • Bodin's Six livres de la république is a vast synthesis of comparative public law and politics, the theoretical core of which is formed by the four chapters translated in this volume. These contain his celebrated theory of sovereignty, which informed his thinking on the state and made his République a landmark in the development of European political thought. This theory, however, also included a seductive but erroneous thesis that was of great importance for the development of royalist ideology: the idea that sovereignty is indivisible, that the entire power of the state has to be vested in a single individual or group. This thesis, together with the crisis of authority in the French religious wars, led Bodin to a systematically absolutist interpretation of the French and other contemporary monarchies. His primary aim was to exclude any legal ground of forcible resistance. A king of France, he hoped, would continue to adhere to moral and prudential limitations, but a proper king, he insisted, could not be lawfully constrained. This is the first complete translation of these chapters into English since 1606. It is accompanied by a lucid introduction, a chronology, and a bibliography.

Sidney: Court Maxims
  • Algernon Sidney
  • Edited by Hans W. Blom, Eco Haitsma-Mulier, Ronald Janse
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    23 February 1996
  • This remarkable expression of radical republican thought has never before been published. Algernon Sidney was among the most unrelenting partisans of the parliamentary party during the Commonwealth, and died on the scaffold in 1683 for his opposition to Charles II. Sidney's voluminous Discourses Concerning Government was published after his death, but the earlier and more vivid Court Maxims was only recently rediscovered in a manuscript in Warwick Castle. Written during Sidney's continental exile, Court Maxims reveals the international character of republican thought. Its dialogue structure presents a lively discussion about the principles of government and the practice of politics, articulating a vital tradition of republicanism in an age of absolutism. These characteristics make Court Maxims a unique text, essential reading for anyone interested in republicanism or Early Modern political thought.

The British Idealists
  • Edited by David Boucher
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    31 July 1997
  • The British idealists made significant and lasting contributions to the social and political thought of the nineteenth century. They contributed to the evolution debate in insisting that the social organism could not be understood in naturalistic terms, but instead had to be conceived as an evolving spiritual unity. In this respect the British idealists developed a distinctive view of the state constitutive of the individual and they are commonly acknowledged as the forerunners of modern communitarian theory. Furthermore the idealists contributed to the major debates of their day, including evolution, democracy, the role of the state, education and international relations. In his introduction, David Boucher develops the themes illustrated in the writings of the British idealists. This volume also contains biographies of the British idealists which incorporate their principal works.

Thoreau: Political Writings
  • Henry David Thoreau
  • Edited by Nancy L. Rosenblum
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    23 May 1996
  • Thoreau's political writing is intensely personal and direct. Both his life and work focus uncompromisingly on the question 'how should I live?', and for Thoreau, no element of day-to-day existence is left untouched by moral and political issues. This 1996 edition of Thoreau's political essays includes 'Civil Disobedience', selections from Walden, 'Life Without Principle', and the anti-slavery addresses, such as 'Slavery in Massachusetts'. In her introduction, Nancy L. Rosenblum places the essays in the context of Thoreau's life of self-examination, and the debates about the abolition of slavery, and she analyses the themes of citizenship and resistance that have made Thoreau an enduring influence in political philosophy and practice.

Morris: News from Nowhere
  • William Morris
  • Edited by Krishan Kumar
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    09 March 1995
  • News from Nowhere (1890) is the most famous work of one of the greatest British writers and thinkers, William Morris. It is a utopian picture of a future communist society, drawing on the work of Ruskin and Marx and written in response to what Morris saw as soulless and mechanical visions of socialism. In this work of his last years, Morris distilled many of his leading ideas on politics, art and society, imagining a world in which capitalism has been abolished by a workers' revolution and nature and society have become beautiful habitations for humanity. In an era that has seen the collapse of state socialism, Morris's damning critique of this conception, and his positing of a powerful alternative, have important contemporary resonances.

Diderot: Political Writings
  • Denis Diderot
  • Edited by John Hope Mason, Robert Wokler
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    28 May 1992
  • Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was one of the most significant figures of the French enlightenment. His political writings cover the period from the first volume of the Encyclopedie (1751), of which he was principal editor, to the third edition of Raynal's Histoire des Deux Indes (1780), one of the most widely read books of the pre-revolutionary period. This volume contains the most important of Diderot's articles for the Encyclopedie, a substantial number of his contributions to the Histoire, the complete texts of his Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville, one of his most visionary works, and his Observations sur le Nakaz, a precise and detailed political work translated here into English for the first time. The editors' introduction sets these works in their context and shows the underlying coherence of Diderot's thought. A chronology of events and a bibliography are included as further aids to the reader.

Comte: Early Political Writings
  • Auguste Comte
  • Edited by H. S. Jones
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    05 November 1998
  • This edition of the French philosopher Auguste Comte's (1798–1857) early essays shows Comte at the heart of the political and intellectual debates of Restoration France. The young Comte forged the central features of his philosophical system in response to the central challenge of the 1820s - how to find a new foundation for political legitimacy and thus to 'close' the revolutionary era. Stuart Jones's introduction to this new edition shows how Comte grappled with problems that confronted liberals and counter-revolutionaries alike, and identifies the novelty of his solution. The essays presented in this edition reveal the systematizing character of Comte's intellect, which lay at the root of his enormous appeal to nineteenth-century readers. In addition to the substantial introduction, this volume contains a chronology, biographical information on key figures, and a bibliographical note making this an accessible volume highly suitable for undergraduate use.

Bentham: A Fragment on Government
  • Jeremy Bentham
  • Edited by Ross Harrison
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    28 October 1988
  • This volume makes available to a student readership one of the central texts in the utilitarian tradition, in the authoritative 1977 edition prepared by Professors Burns and Hart as part of Bentham's Collected works. A Fragment on Government is, as Ross Harrison observes in his introduction, a young man's work, and Bentham's exuberant prose reflects his own confidence that the Fragment 'was the first publication by which men at large were invited to break loose from the trammels of authority and ancestor-wisdom on the field of law'. Certain that history was on his side, Bentham sought to rid the world of the hideous mess wrought by legal obfuscation and confusion, and to transform politics into a rational scientific activity, premised on the hideous politics into a rational scientific activity, premised on the fundamental axiom that 'it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong'. In the context of a European social and political order still based upon privilege and hereditary right, this was a profoundly subversive sentiment. This edition of the Fragment on Government contains several important students aids, including a guide to further reading and a chronology of the principal events in Bentham's life.

Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings on Politics, Economics, and Virtue
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Edited by Alan Houston
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    21 October 2004
  • Benjamin Franklin is one of the best known and most widely admired figures in American history. His wit and charm make him endearing; his practical intelligence and commitment to middle-class virtues like thrift and industry make him admirable. Indeed to many he is 'the first American'. Ironically, this identification of Franklin with American popular culture diminishes the breadth and depth of his contributions to modern political thought. The present volume provides the textual foundation for a fuller understanding of Franklin's thought, and represents a major addition to the Cambridge Texts series. Readers interested in the Autobiography will find a new and complete edition based on the original manuscript. Those interested in the full range of Franklin's political ideas will find a selection of his most important letters, essays and pamphlets. Alan Houston's lucid introduction brings life to these texts and sets them in their proper historical context.

The Federalist
  • With Letters of Brutus
  • Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
  • Edited by Terence Ball
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    29 May 2003
  • The Federalist represents one side of one of the most momentous political debates ever conducted: whether to ratify, or to reject, the newly-drafted American constitution. To understand the debate properly requires attention to opposing Antifederalist arguments against the Constitution, and this new and authoritative student-friendly edition presents in full all eighty-five Federalist papers written by the pseudonymous 'Publius' (Hamilton, Madison, and Jay), along with the sixteen letters of 'Brutus', the prominent but still unknown New York Antifederalist who was Publius's most formidable foe. Each is systematically cross-referenced to the other, and both to the appended Articles of Confederation and US Constitution, making the reader acutely aware of the cut-and-thrust of debate in progress. The distinguished political theorist Terence Ball provides all of the standard series editorial features, including brief biographies and notes for further reading, making this the most accessible rendition ever of a classic of political thought in action.

Conciliarism and Papalism
  • Edited by J. H. Burns, Thomas Izbicki
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    28 November 1997
  • Almost on the eve of the sixteenth-century Reformation, the long-running debate over the respective authority of popes and councils in the Catholic Church was vigorously resumed. In this collection the editors bring together the first English translation of four major contributions to that debate. In these texts, complex arguments derived from Scripture, theology, and canon law are deployed. The issues that emerge, however, prove to have a broader significance. What is foreshadowed here is the confrontation between 'absolutism' and 'constitutionalism' which was to be a dominant theme in the politics of early-modern Europe and beyond. Even on the threshold of the twenty-first century the concerns that underlie and animate the scholastic disputations in these pages retain their force. This 1997 volume includes introductory material which elucidates the context of the debate, as well as a comprehensive bibliography.

John of Salisbury: Policraticus
  • John of Salisbury
  • Edited by Cary J. Nederman
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    26 October 1990
  • John of Salisbury (c.1115–1180) was the foremost political theorist of his age. He was trained in scholastic theology and philosophy at Paris, and his writings are invaluable for summarising many of the metaphysical speculations of his time. The Policraticus is his main work, and is regarded as the first complete work of political theory to be written in the Latin Middle Ages. Cary Nederman's 1991 edition and translation is primarily aimed at undergraduate students of the history of political thought and medieval history. His translation shows how important this text is in understanding the mores, forms of conduct and beliefs of the most powerful and learned segments of twelfth-century Western Europe.

Leibniz: Political Writings
  • 2nd edition
  • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  • Edited by Patrick Riley
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    28 October 1988
  • Leibniz's political and ethical writing long has been neglected, and with this new edition Professor Riley makes available the most representative pieces from Leibniz's political theory. This new edition, specially prepared for this series, is the first to make a considerable number of Leibniz's writings available in English, and includes three previously unpublished manuscripts, a selection of political letters, an introduction, notes, and a critical biography.

Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists
  • Edited by Michael Gagarin, Paul Woodruff
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    21 September 1995
  • This edition of early Greek writings on social and political issues includes works by more than thirty authors. There is a particular emphasis on the sophists, with the inclusion of all of their significant surviving texts, and the works of Alcidamas, Antisthenes and the 'Old Oligarch' are also represented. In addition there are excerpts from early poets such as Homer, Hesiod and Solon, the three great tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, medical writers and presocratic philosophers. Besides political theory, areas represented include early anthropology, sociology, ethics and rhetoric, and the wide range of issues discussed includes human nature, the origin of human society, the origin of law, the nature of justice, the forms of good government, the distribution of wealth, and the distribution of power among genders and social classes.

The Dutch Revolt
  • Edited by Martin van Gelderen
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    25 March 1993
  • This is a major English-language edition of five central texts in the history of the political thought of the Dutch Revolt. Published between 1570 and 1590 these texts exemplify the development of the political ideas which motivated and legitimated resistance to the government of Philip II and which became the crucial part of the ideological foundations of the Dutch Republic. The five texts address notions of liberty, constitutionalism, representation and popular sovereignty which were of central importance to the political thought and the revolutionary events of the Dutch Revolt. In the introduction, locating the texts in their political and intellectual context, Martin van Gelderen argues that the Revolt was as much inspired by the indigenous legacy of Dutch constitutionalism and civic consciousness as by the intellectual legacy of the late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation. Biographical notes, a chronology of the Revolt's main events and a guide to further reading are also provided as student aids.

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