Selected Political Writings of Bolingbroke (Cambridge History of Political Thought: Facsimile Edition)

Author: (British) Bolingbroke, H.J.
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: Henry St John, later Viscount Bolingbroke, was one of the most creative political thinkers in eighteenth-century Britain, and his writings influenced the British and American Founding Fathers and the French Revolutionaries. In this volume, modernised and fully annotated texts of his most important political works, the Dissertation upon Parties, the letter ‘On the Spirit of Patriotism’, and The Idea of a Patriot King, are brought together for the first time. Bolingbroke was the first major thinker to face the long-term economic and political consequences of the Glorious Revolution, particularly the creation of the first modern system of party politics. In these works of the 1730s, he attempted to forge an ideology of opposition to attack the Whig oligarchy of Sir Robert Walpole, using materials drawn from classical republicanism and neo-Stoicism as well as from contemporary Whig and Tory thought. His analyses of constitutional government and the party system are still relevant to the dilemmas of the common good and the necessity of a non-partisan executive. This volume is intended for undergraduate students and, as such, it contains a new introduction, a chronology of the main events in Bolingbroke’s life, and an invaluable guide to further reading. DAVID ARMITAGE is Associate Professor of History at Columbia University. He co-edited Milton and Republicanism with Amand Himmelfarb and Quentin Skinner.