Manent, Pierre, Rebecca Balinski, and Jerrold Seigel. “Machiavelli and the Fecundity of Evil.” In An Intellectual History of Liberalism, 1:10–19. Princeton University Press, 1995.

Excerpt:

“How shall we begin? Where do we begin? The period preceding the establishment of liberal regimes is conventionally called the ancien régime—an entirely retrospective or negative designation to which another, positive or prospective one is bound to be preferable. This might be called the era of ‘absolute’ or ‘national’ monarchies. It is the notion of sovereignty that gives form to the latter. As it prevailed in Europe, this notion was radically new in history. To understand it, we have to understand the world from which it emerged and the world it then reorganized.”

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