Description
Book SynopsisFocuses on Hume's monumental History of England as the key to his distinctly political ideas. This title argues that conventions of authority are the main building blocks of Humean politics, and explores how the History addresses political change and disequilibrium through a dynamic treatment of coordination problems.
Trade Review"Andrew Sabl has written an exceptionally fine overview of David Hume's History of England... The History into which Hume poured such brilliance remains an undiscovered continent... But with Sabl's full-length study, we can say that it has finally been mapped."--David Walsh, Perspectives on Politics "David Hume's History of England, a long-neglected classic of political philosophy, has recently become the object of serious study by political theorists. Hume's Politics, one of the best books on Hume published in recent years, shows convincingly how much political theorists and political scientists have to learn from Hume's masterpiece... Sabl shows that Hume's political theory is a more than worthy conversation partner with the political science of today. He thus points to a political science that is superior to both merely normative political theorizing and positivistic political science."--."--Thomas W. Merrill, Review of Politics "[E]xtraordinarily painstaking and erudite study of [Hume's History] in its six-volume entirety."--Political Theory
Table of ContentsPreface ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Coordination and Convention 21 Chapter 2 Coordinating Interests: The Liberalism of Enlargement 43 Chapter 3 Convention and Allegiance 90 Chapter 4 Crown and Charter: Fundamental Conventions as Principles of Authority 121 Chapter 5 Leadership and Constitutional Crises 157 Chapter 6 Vertical Inequality and the Extortion of Liberty 188 Chapter 7 What Touches All: Equality, Parliamentarism, and Contested Authority 207 Conclusion 227 Notes 249 References 313 Index 327
