Major Works

• On the Spirit of the Laws

  - Recommended edition: Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de. The Spirit of the Laws. Edited and translated by Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989.
  Excerpt from the recommended edition: I began by examining men, and I believed that, amidst the infinite diversity of laws and mores, they were not led by their fancies alone. I have set down the principles, and I have seen particular cases conform to them as… More

• Persian Letters

  - Recommended Edition: Bilingual edition by Tony Richardson and John Davidson, Jiahu Books, 201

Commentary

• Philosophy and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment

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  Keohane, Nannerl O. Philosophy and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

• Montesquieu

  - Lowenthal, David. "Montesquieu." In History of Political Philosophy. 3rd ed., edited by Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

• Montesquieu

  - Shklar, Judith N. Montesquieu. Past Masters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
  From the publisher: One of the most original political thinkers of the Enlightenment, Montesquieu utilized his passionate belief in toleration and the moral benefits of science to construct a naturalistic system of political science based on the study of… More

• Essays on Montesquieu and on the Enlightenment

  - Shackleton, Robert, David Gilson, and Martin Smith. Essays on Montesquieu and on the Enlightenment. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, 1988.

• Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism: A Commentary on the Spirit of the Laws

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  Pangle, Thomas L. Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism: a Commentary on the Spirit of the Laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
  From the publisher: This first comprehensive commentary on The Spirit of the Laws uncovers and explicates the plan of Montesquieu’s famous but baffling treatise. Pangle brings to light Montesquieu’s rethinking of the philosophical groundwork of… More

• Erotic Liberalism by Diana Schaub

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  Schaub, Diana J. Erotic Liberalism: Women and Revolution in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995.
  From the publisher: A treatment of Montesquieu’s “Persian Letters”, which argues that the novel is a philosophic critique of despotism in all its forms: domestic, political and religious. It shows that Montesquieu believed that the… More

• Self-Interest Rightly Understood

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  Mansfield, Harvey C. “Self-Interest Rightly Understood.” Political Theory 23, no. 1 (February 1, 1995): 48–66.

• The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph

  - Hirschman, Albert O. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
  In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests –so long condemned as the… More

• The City of Man

  - Manent, Pierre. The City of Man. Translated by Marc A. LePain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
  From the publisher: The “City of God” or the “City of Man”? This is the choice St. Augustine offered 1500 years ago–and according to Pierre Manent the modern West has decisively and irreversibly chosen the latter. In this subtle… More

• On the Politics of Faith and Reason: The Project of Enlightenment in Pierre Bayle and Montesquieu

  - Bartlett, Robert C. “On the Politics of Faith and Reason: The Project of Enlightenment in Pierre Bayle and Montesquieu.” The Journal of Politics 63, no. 1 (February 1, 2001): 1–28.
  This study seeks to contribute to our understanding of the original political goals of the Enlightenment, especially in its confrontation with the Bible as a source of political guidance. It consists primarily of an exegesis of two seminal works of the… More

• Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Classical Liberalism: On Montesquieu’s Critique of Hobbes

  - Zuckert, Michael. "Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Classical Liberalism: On Montesquieu's Critique of Hobbes." In Natural Law and Modern Moral Philosophy, edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  Zuckert gives an account of Montesquieu’s conception of natural law and relation to Hobbes.

• Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

  - Carrithers, David W., ed. Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. International Library of Essays in the History of Social and Political Thought Series. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Press, 2009.
  From the publisher: The French philosopher Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) was a political and social thinker of enormous depth, range, originality, and influence. The essays by eminent scholars reprinted in this volume explore… More

• Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect

  - Rahe, Paul Anthony. Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
  From the publisher: In 1989, the Cold War abruptly ended and it seemed as if the world was at last safe for democracy. But a spirit of uneasiness, discontent, and world-weariness soon arose and has persisted in Europe, in America, and elsewhere for two… More

• The Theological Basis of Liberal Modernity in Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws

  - Pangle, Thomas L. The Theological Basis of Liberal Modernity in Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 2010.
  From the publisher: The Spirit of the Laws—Montesquieu’s huge, complex, and enormously influential work—is considered one of the central texts of the Enlightenment, laying the foundation for the liberally democratic political regimes that were to… More

• The Idea of Enlightenment: A Postmortem Study

  - Bartlett, Robert C. The Idea of Enlightenment: A Postmortem Study. Toronto: Univ. Of Toronto Press, 2011.
  From the publisher: In “The Idea of Enlightenment”, Robert Bartlett explores the roots of the contemporary dissatisfaction with the modern Enlightenment, the momentous political-philosophical project that sought to liberate politics from religious… More

• Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas

  - Berlin, Isaiah. Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas. Edited by Henry Hardy. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2013.
  From the publisher: In this outstanding collection of essays, Isaiah Berlin, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, discusses the importance of dissenters in the history of ideas—among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen, and Sorel.… More

Multimedia

• Iván Szelényi: Montesquieu

  - Iván Szelényi, "Foundations of Modern Social Theory," Yale Open Courses, Fall 2009.
  Professor Iván Szelényi’s lectures on Montesquieu from Yale’s “Foundations of Modern Social Theory,” available through Yale Open Courses. Fall 2009.