J.P.Sommerville

History 867

European Social and Intellectual History:
Political and Social Ideas in Early Modern Europe

 Spring 2009

Class meets in 5255 Humanities, Tuesdays at 1:20-3:20.

Office Hours: 5214 Humanities, Office Hours: Tuesdays 3:30-4:45, and by appointment. 

	to introduce students to the most important and influential theories about the nature, purposes, and objectives of the state and society which circulated in early modern Europe, and which have shaped how the Western World has thought about these questions ever since;
	to improve students' skills in analyzing and criticizing political arguments and theories, both in discussion and on paper.

1. attend classes and contribute to discussion (this will count for 30% of the grade);
2. write two papers of 10-15 pages (inclusive of bibliography and notes; due 10 March and 5 May; each will count for 25% of the grade);
3. give a classroom presentation (lasting for 30 minutes at the very most) to introduce the week's discussion (this will count for 20% of the grade). N.B. the presentation must be not be on the same topic as the papers.

	Christian humanism, the Renaissance, and utopianism
	Machiavelli, Machiavellism, and reason of state
	Natural Law, scholasticism, and church-state relations
	Absolutism, royalism, and sovereignty
	The "monarchomachs": resistance theory, tyrannicide, and contract
	Gender, the family, and political authority: patriarchalism: Sir Robert Filmer
	Henry Parker, Philip Hunton and Parliamentary power
	Hobbes on the state of nature and the nature of the state
	Hobbes on the church, state and religion
	Democracy: the Levellers
	Grotius, Pufendorf and the Modern Theory of Natural Law
	Republicanism: Harrington and Neville
	Locke on Government
	Toleration

General introductions and reference            

Burns, J.H., ed., The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700, Cambridge 1991.
[Up-to-date, important volume, running to over 700pp.]

Figgis, John Neville, Studies of political thought from Gerson to Grotius, 1414-1625, Cambridge 1907.
[Good, clear introduction. Available online free ]

Gierke, Otto von, Natural Law and the theory of society, 1500 to 1800, ed. and translated by Ernest Barker, 2 vols., Cambridge 1934.
[A classic, though it is difficult and Gierke had some strange ideas.]

Skinner, Quentin, The foundations of modern political thought, 2 vols, Cambridge 1978.
[The best modern account.]

Tierney, Brian, Religion, Law and the Growth of constitutional thought, 1150-1650, Cambridge 1982.
[Important, concise book; excellent on the medieval background to early modern ideas.]

Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government 1572-1651, Cambridge 1993.
[This original and imaginative book discusses a number of thinkers  rarely considered elsewhere.]