Hannah Dawson and Annelien De Dijn editors, Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism

Excerpt

This excellent collection of essays has been published in honor of Quentin Skinner’s Liberty before Liberalism.¹ Its title echoes that of an earlier collection Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, published in honor of Skinner’s two-volume The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978). ² Insofar as size is concerned, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought and Liberty before Liberalism are quite sharply dissimilar. Whereas the former exceeds 700 pages, the latter, an extended version of Skinner’s Inaugural Lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, is less than a quarter in length at 142 small pages. Yet, both works have been enormously influential. The Foundations was named by the Times Literary Supplement in 1995 as one of the 100 most influential books since World War Two. Liberty before Liberalism has had, as Hannah Dawson and Annelien de Dijn rightly emphasize in their introduction to Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism, “a transformative impact on both the history of political thought and political theory.” (p. 1) …