Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain

This collection of essays, all by pre-eminent exponents of the history of political thought, explores the political ideologies of early modern Britain. Organised on a broadly chronological basis, the topics addressed by individual scholars reflect in general the themes initiated and inspired by the work of the distinguished intellectual historian, J. G. A. Pocock, for whom the collection is intended as a tribute. Each of the sixteen contributors have thought long and critically about Pocock’s seminal contributions to the subject, and in each essay engages with the debates he has provoked. As a fitting conclusion to the volume, Professor Pocock has responded to the essays and provided his personal interpretation of the themes they invoke.

• Star team of contributors • Important subject area dominated by the honorand of the volume, J. G. A. Pocock • Subject area one of controversy

Preface; Part I: 1. George Buchanan and the Anti-Monarchomachs J. H. Burns; 2. The ancient constitution revisited William Klein; 3. Arminianism: the controversy that never was William Lamont; 4. Scienta civilis in classical rhetoric and in the early Hobbes Quentin Skinner; Part II: 5. Parliamentary sovereignty: a very English absolutism Michael Mendle; 6. The civil religion of Thomas Hobbes Richard Tuck; 7. The rapture of motion: James Harrington’s republicanism Jonathan Scott; 8. Casuistry to Newcastle: The Prince in the world of the book Conal Condren; Part III: 9. Between Lambeth and Leviathan: Samuel Parker on the Church of England and political order Gordon J. Schochet; 10. Priestcraft and the birth of Whiggism Mark Goldie; 11. The right to resist: Whig resistance theory in the Revolution of 1688–9 Lois G. Schwoerer; 12. Placing the Two Treatises James Tully; Part IV: 13. Shaftesbury, politeness and the politics of religion Lawrence Klein; 14. Propriety, property and prudence: David Hume and the defence of the revolution Nicholas Phillipson; 15. The rhapsody of public debt: David Hume and the voluntary state bankruptcy Istvan Hont; 16. Universal monarchy and the liberties of Europe: David Hume’s critique of an English Whig doctrine John Robertson; Part V: 17. A discourse of sovereignty: observations on the work in progress J. G. A. Pocock; A bibliography of the writings of J. G. A. Pocock; Index.

‘This volume is then two things at once: a tribute to the immense and continuing achievement of John Pocock; and an attempt to identify alternative agendas within which to locate and to understand the malleability of early modern political thought. It is to be welcomed for both, and even more for the dialectic it has set up between them.’ John Morrill, Times Literary Supplement

‘This exciting and important collection … deserves widespread attention … ’ Archives