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

Commentary

• Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century

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  Pocock, J. G. A. Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
  From the publisher: A collection of essays from one of the leading figures in the study of the history of political thought. Includes essays concerned principally with the history of British political thought in the 18th century, several of which have been… More

• 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

• Main Currents in Sociological Thought

  - Aron, Raymond. Translated by Richard Howard and Helen Weaver. Main Currents in Sociological Thought. Vol. 1. New Brunswick: Transaction, 1998.
  From the publisher: More than a work of reconstruction, Aron’s study is an engagement with the question of modernity that explores three traditions: the French liberal school of political sociology, the Comtean tradition, and the Marxists.

• 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

• Montesquieu and the Spirit of Modernity

  - Carrithers, David W., and Patrick Coleman, eds. Montesquieu and the Spirit of Modernity. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002.

• The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition

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  Pocock, J. G. A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003.
  From the publisher: The Machiavellian Moment is a classic study of the consequences for modern historical and social consciousness of the ideal of the classical republic revived by Machiavelli and other thinkers of Renaissance Italy. J.G.A. Pocock suggests… More

• Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rosseau, Marx

  - Althusser, Louis. Translated by Ben Brewster. Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rosseau, Marx. London: Verso, 2007.
  From the publisher: In the first two essays of this book, Louis Althusser analyses the work of two of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment – Montesquieu and Rousseau. He shows that although they made considerable advances towards establishing a… More

• 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

• Montesquieu and His Legacy

  - Kingston, Rebecca, ed. Montesquieu and His Legacy. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009.
  From the publisher: Montesquieu (1689-1755) is regarded as one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment. His Lettres persanes and L’Esprit des lois have been read by students and scholars throughout the last two centuries. While many have… More

• Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War, Religion, Commerce, Climate, Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit of Political Vigilance, and the Foundations of the Modern Republic

  - Rahe, Paul Anthony. Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War, Religion, Commerce, Climate, Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit of Political Vigilance, and the Foundations of the Modern Republic. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
  From the publisher: This fresh examination of the works of Montesquieu seeks to understand the shortcomings of the modern democratic state in light of this great political thinker’s insightful critique of commercial republicanism. The western democracies’… More

• Alexis de Tocqueville and the Two-Founding Thesis

  - Ceaser, James W. “Alexis de Tocqueville and the Two-Founding Thesis.” The Review of Politics 73, no. 2 (April 1, 2011): 219–243.
  Alexis de Tocqueville’s account of the formation of the American regime identifies two constitutive moments: the Puritan colonization and the Revolution and the Constitution (1775–1789). Contrary to historians of the day, Tocqueville gave as much… More