DOCSLIB.ORG

Montesquieu on the History and Geography of Political Liberty

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Montesquieu on the History and Geography of Political Liberty Montesquieu on the History and Geography of Political Liberty Author: Rebecca Clark Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:103616 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2012 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Department of Political Science MONTESQUIEU ON THE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF POLITICAL LIBERTY A dissertation by REBECCA RUDMAN CLARK submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2012 © Copyright by REBECCA RUDMAN CLARK 2012 Abstract Montesquieu on the History and Geography of Political Liberty Rebecca R. Clark Dissertation Advisor: Christopher Kelly Montesquieu famously presents climate and terrain as enabling servitude in hot, fertile climes and on the exposed steppes of central Asia. He also traces England’s exemplary constitution, with its balanced constitution, independent judiciary, and gentle criminal practices, to the unique conditions of early medieval northern Europe. The English “found” their government “in the forests” of Germany. There, the marginal, variegated terrain favored the dispersion of political power, and a pastoral way of life until well into the Middle Ages. In pursuing a primitive honor unrelated to political liberty as such, the barbaric Franks accidentally established the rudiments of the most “well-tempered” government. His turn to these causes accidental to human purposes in Parts 3-6 begins with his analysis of the problem of unintended consequences in the history of political reform in Parts 1-2. While the idea of balancing political powers in order to prevent any one individual or group from dominating the rest has ancient roots, he shows that it has taken many centuries to understand just what needs to be balanced, and to learn to balance against one threat without inviting another. Knowledge of the administration of criminal justice has proven the most important to liberty, as well as the most difficult to acquire and put into practice. Montesquieu’s attention to accidental causes sheds light on the contradictions within human nature, and the complex relationship between humans and their physical and conventional environments. He shows how nature provides support for both political liberty and for despotism. The wisdom of organizing government with a view to political liberty, as well as the means for doing so, does not follow from human nature in the abstract, but has required reflection on experiences with the consequences of actual governments. By highlighting the dependence of free politics on conditions outside the legislator’s immediate control, he encourages reformers to attend to the non-legal supports of political liberty, the limits of human ingenuity, and the risks of unintended consequences. His attention to forces beyond human control provides the occasion to clarify the character of liberal legislative prudence, the art of leading by “inviting without constraining.” i Montesquieu on the History and Geography of Political Liberty Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 Section 1: Liberty of the constitution and unintended consequences .............................. 20 Chapter 1: An introduction to political liberty through despotism ..................................... 22 Chapter 2: Locke, Montesquieu, and the early history of political balancing .................... 35 Chapter 3: Why the ancients did not understand monarchy ............................................... 53 Chapter 4: The characteristically democratic misunderstanding of liberty as independence and people power ........................................................................ 64 Chapter 5: The historical abuses of criminal justice native to republics ............................ 70 Chapter 6: The abuse of criminal justice under imperial and inquisitorial monarchies ... 100 Section 2: Gothic government and the history of French laws ....................................... 124 Chapter 7: Modern England .............................................................................................. 124 Chapter 8: Montesquieu’s approach to historical analysis ............................................... 134 Chapter 9: Gothic government .......................................................................................... 150 Chapter 10: The development of the Frankish monarchy ................................................. 172 Chapter 11: The age of judicial combat ............................................................................ 189 Chapter 12: Saint Louis’ juridical statesmanship ............................................................. 211 Chapter 13: Reflections on the intellectual and political context of Montesquieu’s analysis of Gothic and Frankish government................................................................. 233 Section 3: The Geography of Liberty and Despotism...................................................... 249 Chapter 14: Introduction to Montesquieu’s analysis of climate and terrain ..................... 255 Chapter 15: Physical and moral causes ............................................................................. 285 Chapter 16: North and South, Hot and Cold ..................................................................... 306 Chapter 17: Montesquieu’s case against slavery and the “natural reason” for it.............. 334 Chapter 18: The terrains of liberty and servitude ............................................................. 359 Chapter 19: Legislating to counter the vices of climate ................................................... 405 Chapter 20: Evaluating Montesquieu’s science of environmental influence.................... 425 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 437 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 454 ii Acknowledgements Thanks to all of my teachers, beginning with my family, Madelon, Scott, and Joshua Clark, for their unfaltering support in all ways. Thanks to my teachers at Boston College, Bowdoin College, and Wyoming High School, as much for challenging as for encouraging me. Thanks especially to my advisor Christopher Kelly and committee members Robert Faulkner, Nasser Behnegar, and Susan Shell for carefully reading these excessively long sections, offering such thoughtful comments and advice, and pushing me to address the implications of, and counterarguments to, my analysis. Thanks to Brenna Strauss and Chaim Katz for providing invaluable feedback on drafts since the very beginning, and for supporting my morals throughout the process. iii If a man strikes many coins from one mold, they all resemble one another, but the Supreme King of Kings…fashioned every man in the stamp of the first man, and yet not one of them resembles his fellow. Babylonian Talmud, Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 1 Introduction My dissertation examines Montesquieu's contributions to liberalism through a unique angle: his account of the influence of physical, environmental conditions, as well as historical contingencies on the course of political history. In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu depicts individuals and communities as profoundly shaped by climate and terrain—their physical environment1—as well as by laws, mores, manners, religion, their way of life, economic conditions, and their conventional environment. Among the “various things” to which the laws of any people must relate, he lists “the physical aspect of the country” (physique du pays) second only to the nature and principle of the given government. The physical aspect, he explains, includes “the climate, be it freezing (glacé), torrid (brûlant), or temperate (tempéré)…[and] the properties of the terrain, its location and extent” (1.3.9, emphasis in original). In sum, these factors amount to what we would call the physical environment or geography of a place. After the physique du pays, Montesquieu cites “the way of life of the peoples, be they plowmen, hunters, or herdsmen…the religion of the inhabitants, their inclinations, their wealth, their number, their commerce, their mores, and their manners” as additional key variables to which l’esprit de lois should relate (1.3.9). In particular, he emphasizes the role of these environmental conditions, broadly speaking, in shaping the prospects for political liberty, both for better and for worse. He famously presents hot climate and fertile terrain as posing major constraints on the 1 Montesquieu considers the importance of territorial size as it relates to the various forms of government in Book 8, and to foreign policy in Books 9-10. Climate and terrain also figure in Books 20-21 on commerce, in Book 22 on population, and in passing throughout the entire text (for example 28.2.545). Edition cited, unless otherwise noted, is Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne Cohler, Basia Miller, and Harold Stone (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989). I will note the book number followed by the chapter and then page numbers within the text. 2 geographic scope for liberty in Part 3. He also traces his exemplary models of political liberty to particular times and places.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and the Quasi-War with France
    John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and the Quasi-War with France David Loudon General University Honors Professor Robert Griffith, Faculty Advisor American University, Spring 2010 1 John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and the Quasi-War with France Abstract This paper examines the split of the Federalist Party and subsequent election defeat in 1800 through the views of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton on the Quasi-War with France. More specifically, I will be focusing on what caused their split on the French issue. I argue that the main source of conflict between the two men was ideological differences on parties in contemporary American politics. While Adams believed that there were two parties in America and his job was to remain independent of both, Hamilton saw only one party (the Republicans), and believed that it was the goal of all “real” Americans to do whatever was needed to defeat that faction. This ideological difference between the two men resulted in their personal disdain for one another and eventually their split on the French issue. Introduction National politics in the early American republic was a very uncertain venture. The founding fathers had no historical precedents to rely upon. The kind of government created in the American constitution had never been attempted in the Western World; it was a piecemeal system designed in many ways more to gain individual state approval than for practical implementation. Furthermore, while the fathers knew they wanted opposition within their political system, they rejected political parties as evil and dangerous to the public good. This tension between the belief in opposition and the rejection of party sentiment led to confusion and high tensions during the early American republic.
    [Show full text]
  • Domain Without Subjects Traditional Rulers in Post-Colonial Africa
    Taiwan Journal of Democracy, Volume 13, No. 2: 31-54 Domain without Subjects Traditional Rulers in Post-Colonial Africa Oscar Edoror Ubhenin Abstract The domain of traditional rulers in pre-colonial Africa was the state, defined by either centralization or fragmentation. The course of traditional rulers in Africa was altered by colonialism, thereby shifting their prerogative to the nonstate domain. Their return in post-colonial Africa has coincided with their quest for constitutional “space of power.” In effect, traditional rulers are excluded from modern state governance and economic development. They have remained without subjects in post-colonial Africa. Thus, the fundamental question: How and why did traditional rulers in post-colonial Africa lose their grip over their subjects? In explaining the loss of traditional rulers’ grip over subjects in their domains, this essay refers to oral tradition and published literature, including official government documents. Empirical evidence is drawn from Nigeria and other parts of Africa. Keywords: African politics, chiefs and kings, post-colonialism, traditional domain. During the era of pre-colonialism, African chiefs and kings (also called traditional rulers) operated in the domain of the state, characterized by either centralization or fragmentation. This characterization refers to the variations in political cum administrative institutions along the lines of several hundred ethnic groups that populated Africa. “Centralized” or “fragmented” ethnic groups were based on the number of levels of jurisdiction that transcended the local community, “where more jurisdictional levels correspond[ed] to more centralized groups.”1 Traditional rulers in Africa had mechanisms for formulating public policies and engaging public officers who assisted them in development and delivering relevant services to their subjects.
    [Show full text]
  • The Relationship Between Capitalism and Democracy
    The Relationship Between Capitalism And Democracy Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Petkovic, Aleksandra Evelyn Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 01/10/2021 12:57:19 Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/625122 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAPITALISM AND DEMOCRACY By ALEKSANDRA EVELYN PETKOVIC ____________________ A Thesis Submitted to The Honors College In Partial Fulfillment of the Bachelors degree With Honors in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA M A Y 2 0 1 7 Approved by: ____________________________ Dr. Thomas Christiano Department of Philosophy Abstract This paper examines the very complex relationship between capitalism and democracy. While it appears that capitalism provides some necessary element for a democracy, a problem of political inequality and a possible violation of liberty can be observed in many democratic countries. I argue that this political inequality and threat to liberty are fueled by capitalism. I will analyze the ways in which capitalism works against democratic aims. This is done through first illustrating what my accepted conception of democracy is. I then continue to depict how the various problems with capitalism that I describe violate this conception of democracy. This leads me to my conclusion that while capitalism is necessary for a democracy to reach a certain needed level of independence from the state, capitalism simultaneously limits a democracy from reaching its full potential.
    [Show full text]
  • Cult of the Dragon
    Cult of the Dragon by Dale Donovan And naught will be left save shuttered thrones with no rulers. But the dead dragons shall rule the world entire, and . Sammaster First-Speaker Founder of the Cult of the Dragon Dedication To my mother and my father, who always encouraged me, no matter how seemingly strange my interests may have appeared. Thanks to you both I had the chance to pursueand obtainmy dream. While it may seem curious to dedicate a book about a bunch of psycho cultists to ones parents, I figured that, of all people, you two would understand. Credits Design: Dale Donovan Additional and Original Design: L. Richard Baker III, Eric L. Boyd, Timothy B. Brown, Monte Cook, Nigel Findley, Ed Greenwood, Lenard Lakofka, David Kelman, Bill Muhlhausen, Robert S. Mullin, Bruce Nesmith, Jeffrey Pettengill, Jon Pickens, and James M. Ward Development & Editing: Julia Martin Cover Illustration: Clyde Caldwell Interior Illustrations: Glen Michael Angus Art Direction: Dana Knutson and Dawn Murin Typesetting: Angelika Lokotz Research, Inspiration, & Additional Contributions: Robert L. Nichols & Craig Sefton Special Acknowledgment: Gregory Detwiler, Ed Greenwood, Jamie Nossal, Cindy Rick, Carl Sargent, Steven Schend, and the stories of Clark Ashton Smith & Edgar Allan Poe Campaign setting based on the original game world of Ed Greenwood. Based on the original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® rules created by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, AD&D, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, DUNGEON MASTER, FORGOTTEN REALMS, MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM, PLAYERS OPTION, and the TSR logo are registered trademarks owned by TSR, Inc. COUNCIL OF WYRMS, ENCYCLOPEDIA MAGICA, and MONSTROUS MANUAL are trademarks owned by TSR, Inc.
    [Show full text]
  • The Executive Power Clause
    ARTICLE THE EXECUTIVE POWER CLAUSE JULIAN DAVIS MORTENSON† Article II of the Constitution vests “the executive power” in the President. Advocates of presidential power have long claimed that this phrase was originally understood as a term of art for the full suite of powers held by a typical eighteenth- century monarch. In its strongest form, this view yields a powerful presumption of indefeasible presidential authority in the arenas of foreign affairs and national security. This so-called Vesting Clause Thesis is conventional wisdom among constitutional originalists. But it is also demonstrably wrong. Based on a comprehensive review of Founding-era archives—including records of drafting, legislative, and ratication debates, committee les, private and ocial correspondence, diaries, newspapers, pamphlets, poetry, and other publications—this Article not only refutes the Vesting Clause Thesis as a statement of the original understanding, but replaces it with a comprehensive armative account of the clause that is both historically and theoretically coherent. † James G. Phillipp Professor of law, University of Michigan. Thanks to Nick Bagley, Josh Chafetz, Reece Dameron, Jo Ann Davis, Brian Finucane, Louis Fisher, David Gerson, Jonathan Gienapp, Monica Hakimi, Jason Hart, Don Herzog, Kian Hudson, Daniel Hulsebosch, Rebecca Ingber, Andrew Kent, Gary Lawson, Marty Lederman, Tom McSweeney, Henry Monaghan, Bill Novak, David Pozen, Richard Primus, Daphna Renan, Jed Shugerman, Matt Steilen, Valentina Vadi, Matt Waxman, John Witt, Ilan Wurman, and Mariah Zeisberg, as well as participants in the Georgetown Law School Legal History Workshop, the Hofstra Law School Faculty Workshop, the Hugh & Hazel Darling Originalism Works-in-Progress Conference, the McGeorge School of Law Faculty Workshop, the Michigan Law School Governance Workshop, the University of Michigan Legal History Workshop, and the University of Michigan Atlantic History Seminar, for helpful comments on earlier drafts.
    [Show full text]
  • Microlearning Clips Clip 2: “How Did Taxes Come About?” Clip Scenario
    Course: “Digital Tax Education and Tax Payments” Microlearning Clips Clip 2: “How did taxes come about?” Clip Scenario Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 2 1.1. Introducing the character ........................................................................................... 2 2. Early examples of taxes in European history and their evolution up to the present ........ 2 2.1. Early examples of taxes in European history and their evolution up to the present . 2 2.2. Funny taxes over time ................................................................................................. 3 3. Who’s in charge of all the tax money? .............................................................................. 4 4. Tax: everyone pays, everyone benefits ............................................................................. 5 4.1. Everyone benefits ........................................................................................................ 5 5. Spot the benefit ................................................................................................................. 6 1 1. Introduction 1.1. Introducing the character → the character will appear on the screen → the proposed name is 2QT (too cute) 2QT: Hello. My name is 2QT. I am an intergalactic fashion designer. I design rocket-propelled clothes. 2QT: I came to planet Earth because I am fascinated by your shoes. I have a great idea. I can design rocket-propelled
    [Show full text]
  • THE PHILOSOPHES Voltaire Montesquieu Rousseau
    THE PHILOSOPHES Voltaire Montesquieu Rousseau Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Philosophes - public intellectuals dedicated to solving the problems of the World http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxG_d94F3Dg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Philosophes - public intellectuals dedicated to solving the problems of the World - wrote for a broad, educated public audience http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxG_d94F3Dg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Philosophes - public intellectuals dedicated to solving the problems of the World - wrote for a broad, educated public audience - fought to eradicate bigotry, religious fanaticism, superstition http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxG_d94F3Dg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Philosophes - public intellectuals dedicated to solving the problems of the World - wrote for a broad, educated public audience - fought to eradicate bigotry, religious fanaticism, superstition - promoted “Natural Rights” - intellectual freedom, freedom of the press and religion, human progress http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxG_d94F3Dg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Philosophes - public intellectuals dedicated to solving the problems of the World - wrote for a broad, educated public audience - fought to eradicate bigotry, religious fanaticism, superstition - promoted “Natural Rights” - intellectual freedom, freedom of the press and religion, human progress - spread their ideas through books, essays, letters pamphlets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxG_d94F3Dg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_zkMEgkI Tuesday, January 21, 2014 PHILOSOPHES Tuesday, January 21, 2014 PHILOSOPHES - Paris was headquarters Tuesday, January 21, 2014 PHILOSOPHES - Paris was headquarters Tuesday, January 21, 2014 PHILOSOPHES - Paris was headquarters - they met in salons and coffee houses to share ideas Tuesday, January 21, 2014 PHILOSOPHES - Paris was headquarters - they met in salons and coffee houses to share ideas -Mme.
    [Show full text]
  • Contraception and the Renaissance of Traditional Marriage
    CHOOSING A LAW TO LIVE BY ONCE THE KING IS GONE INTRODUCTION Law is the expression of the rules by which civilization governs itself, and it must be that in law as elsewhere will be found the fundamental differences of peoples. Here then it may be that we find the underlying cause of the difference between the civil law and the common law.1 By virtue of its origin, the American legal profession has always been influenced by sources of law outside the United States. American law schools teach students the common law, and law students come to understand that the common law is different than the civil law, which is prevalent in Europe.2 Comparative law courses expose law students to the civil law system by comparing American common law with the law of other countries such as France, which has a civil code.3 A closer look at the history of the American and French Revolutions makes one wonder why the legal systems of the two countries are so different. Certainly, the American and French Revolutions were drastically different in some ways. For instance, the French Revolution was notoriously violent during a period known as “the Terror.”4 Accounts of the French revolutionary government executing so many French citizens as well as the creation of the Cult of the Supreme Being5 make the French Revolution a stark contrast to the American Revolution. Despite the differences, the revolutionary French and Americans shared similar goals—liberty and equality for all citizens and an end to tyranny. Both revolutions happened within approximately two decades of each other and were heavily influenced by the Enlightenment.
    [Show full text]
  • Law, Liberty and the Rule of Law (In a Constitutional Democracy)
    Georgetown University Law Center Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW 2013 Law, Liberty and the Rule of Law (in a Constitutional Democracy) Imer Flores Georgetown Law Center, [email protected] Georgetown Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 12-161 This paper can be downloaded free of charge from: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1115 http://ssrn.com/abstract=2156455 Imer Flores, Law, Liberty and the Rule of Law (in a Constitutional Democracy), in LAW, LIBERTY, AND THE RULE OF LAW 77-101 (Imer B. Flores & Kenneth E. Himma eds., Springer Netherlands 2013) This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Legislation Commons, and the Rule of Law Commons Chapter6 Law, Liberty and the Rule of Law (in a Constitutional Democracy) lmer B. Flores Tse-Kung asked, saying "Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?" K'ung1u-tzu said: "Is not reciprocity (i.e. 'shu') such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not ckJ to others." Confucius (2002, XV, 23, 225-226). 6.1 Introduction Taking the "rule of law" seriously implies readdressing and reassessing the claims that relate it to law and liberty, in general, and to a constitutional democracy, in particular. My argument is five-fold and has an addendum which intends to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western civilizations,
    [Show full text]
  • CONDORCET (1743–94) Bernard Jolibert1
    The following text was originally published in Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol. XXIII, no. 1/2, 1993, p. 197-209. ©UNESCO: International Bureau of Education, 2000 This document may be reproduced free of charge as long as acknowledgement is made of the source. CONDORCET (1743–94) Bernard Jolibert1 In the discussions of ideas that constitute our daily intellectual environment there are certain words that reek of cordite and certain writers who give us a sense of peace. The term ‘secular’ is in the first category, and Condorcet in the second. A person who speaks of secular or non-religious education or schools, or of educational ‘neutrality’, immediately lays himself or herself open to being regarded either as a supporter of the ‘independent school’, that is private, clerical, religious, ‘right-wing’ and, needless to say, reactionary, or as a champion of public, secular, positivist, ‘left-wing’ and, needless to say, anti-clerical education. Simplistic images are powerful, and ingrained mental habits so reassuring. And yet the divisions are not always where one would like them to be. I may be that one of the first people to notice the caricatural exaggeration of this Manichaean representation of the school was in fact Condorcet, at a time when the present-day French noun denoting the principle of non-religious education did not yet exist. Rather than bludgeon the reader with an encyclopedic account of the educational writings and thought of Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, it seemed more useful to accompany this writer, insufficiently known in spite of media excitement over the bicentenary of the French Revolution, along the path that led him to discover the secular ideal.
    [Show full text]
  • France: the Revolt of Democratic Christianity and the Rise of Public Opinion
    The Enlightenment and religion 4 France: the revolt of democratic Christianity and the rise of public opinion This chapter focuses on the emergence of religious toleration in France and the degree to which it was brought about by broad po- litico-religious struggle rather than by the philosophes.1 The discus- sion will, therefore, not provide the usual Enlightenment studies degree of focus upon the philosophes. Much of the research neces- sary for a revision of the role of the philosophes in France has been accumulating for several decades, but there has not yet been an at- tempt to bring together the various strands and integrate them into a critique of their role. Albeit slowly, from the mid 1960s a revision of the status of Pierre Bayle as a Calvinist fideist (discussed in earlier chapters) rather than an early philosophe has gradually gained ac- ceptance.2 Again rather slowly and mostly from the 1980s, there have been efforts to demonstrate that Christianity occupied a more important place in the development of the French Enlightenment than had hitherto been accepted.3 In particular there has been in- creased recognition of the role of Jansenism, especially in the land- mark suppression of the Jesuits.4 Much of the tale I recount in this chapter is, therefore, already well-known and I am indebted to the research of a number of scholars (some of whom have already been cited in earlier chapters) including R. Barny, C. J. Betts, P. R. Campbell, A. Kors, P. J. Korshin, Elizabeth Labrousse, M. Linton, J. McManners, W.
    [Show full text]
  • Digital Tools and the History of Political Thought: the Case of Jean
    Digital Tools and the History of Political Th ought: Th e Case of Jean Bodin Ioannis D. Evrigenis, Tufts University Abstract As scholars debate the virtues, drawbacks, and even the existence of the digital human- ities, it is worth thinking more narrowly about how certain digital tools might be put to use in the study of the history of political thought. In what follows, I examine the case of Jean Bodin’s Les six livres de la république, a work as challenging as it is impor- tant. By means of examples of the development of that work and of certain relatively new techniques, I consider the opportunities that these tools aff ord us for the composi- tion of digital variorum editions that are broadly collaborative, fully accessible, up-to- date, and featuring a heretofore impossible degree of editorial accountability. Keywords: Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la république, De Republica Libri Sex, digital hu- manities, history of political thought, history of ideas, text, meaning, editing In interpretive battles over the meaning--intended and otherwise--of infl uen- tial texts, warring parties often consider the nuances and evolution of lan- guage, the historical setting in which a treatise was composed, other relevant debates and exchanges, and speculate about the author’s motives and inten- tions. More often than not, however, these debates tend to take the text itself for granted in at least three important ways. Th e fi rst concerns its provenance, genealogy, and history. Nearly every com- mentary on political thought will have something to say about the setting in which a text was composed, and some may even address the history of its composition and reception.
    [Show full text]