Commentary

• Montesquieu and Rousseau: Forerunners of Sociology

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  Durkheim, Emile. Montesquieu and Rousseau: Forerunners of Sociology. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1960.

• Comparative Political Analysis in Montesquieu and Tocqueville

  - Richter, Melvin. “Comparative Political Analysis in Montesquieu and Tocqueville.” Comparative Politics 1, no. 2 (January 1, 1969): 129–160.
  Richter examines Montesquieu’s and Tocqueville’s procedures of comparative political analysis.

• Montesquieu’s Grand Design: The Political Sociology of ‘Esprit Des Lois’

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  Masterson, M. P. “Montesquieu’s Grand Design: The Political Sociology of ‘Esprit Des Lois’.” British Journal of Political Science 2, no. 3 (July 1, 1972): 283–318.

• 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, Adam Smith and the Discovery of the Social

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  Singer, Brian C. J. “Montesquieu, Adam Smith and the Discovery of the Social.” Journal of Classical Sociology 4, no. 1 (March 1, 2004): 31–57.
  This article seeks to examine the ‘birth of the social’ in the 18th century through an examination and comparison of Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws and Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The underlying claim is that the emergence of… 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

• Montesquieu and the Discovery of the Social

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  Singer, Brian C. J. Montesquieu and the Discovery of the Social. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
  Montesquieu has often been considered the first social theorist. Today, when a number of authors have pronounced ‘the end of the social’, it is time to reconsider its beginnings. What did it mean to ‘discover the social’? What did it… 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.