Description

Book Synopsis
This extended essay by one of the world''s leading historians seeks, in its first part, to excavate and to vindicate, the neo-Roman theory of free citizens and free states as it developed in early modern Britain. This analysis leads on to a powerful defence of the nature, purposes and goals of intellectual history and the history of ideas. As Quentin Skinner says, ''the intellectual historian can help us to appreciate how far the values embodied in our present way of life, and our present ways of thinking about those values, reflect a series of choices made at different times between different possible worlds''. This essay provides one of the most substantial statements yet made about the importance, relevance and potential excitement of this form of historical enquiry. Liberty before Liberalism is based on Quentin Skinner''s Inaugural Lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, delivered in 1997.

Table of Contents
Preface; 1. The neo-Roman theory of free states; 2. Free states and individual liberty; 3. Freedom and the historian; Bibliography; Index.

Liberty before Liberalism

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    A Paperback by Quentin Skinner

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      Book details

      Publisher Cambridge University Press
      Published 3/26/2012 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN-13 9781107689534
      978-1107689534
      ISBN-10 1107689538
      Also in:
      Centrist democratic ideologies and movements

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      This extended essay by one of the world''s leading historians seeks, in its first part, to excavate and to vindicate, the neo-Roman theory of free citizens and free states as it developed in early modern Britain. This analysis leads on to a powerful defence of the nature, purposes and goals of intellectual history and the history of ideas. As Quentin Skinner says, ''the intellectual historian can help us to appreciate how far the values embodied in our present way of life, and our present ways of thinking about those values, reflect a series of choices made at different times between different possible worlds''. This essay provides one of the most substantial statements yet made about the importance, relevance and potential excitement of this form of historical enquiry. Liberty before Liberalism is based on Quentin Skinner''s Inaugural Lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, delivered in 1997.

      Table of Contents
      Preface; 1. The neo-Roman theory of free states; 2. Free states and individual liberty; 3. Freedom and the historian; Bibliography; Index.

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