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Certain English writers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, whom scholars often associate with classical republicanism, were not, in fact, hostile to liberalism. Indeed, these thinkers contributed to a synthesis of liberalism and modern republicanism. As this book argues, Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington, Henry Neville, Algernon Sidney, and John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, the coauthors of a series of editorials entitled Cato's Letters, provide a synthesis that responds to the demands of both republicans and liberals by offering a politically engaged citizenry as well as the protection of individual rights. The book also reinterprets the writings of Machiavelli and Hobbes to show that each contributed in a fundamental way to the formation of this liberal republicanism.
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Machiavelli, Hobbes, and the Formation of a Liberal Republicanism in England Certain English writers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, whom scholars often associate with classical republicanism, were not, in fact, hostile to liberalism. Indeed, these thinkers contributed to a synthesis of liberalism and modern republicanism. As this book argues, Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington, Henry Neville, Algernon Sidney, and John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, the coauthors of a series of editorials entitled Cato’s Letters, provide a synthesis that responds to the demands of both republicans and liberals by offering a politically engaged citizenry as well as the protection of individual rights. The book also reinterprets the writings of Machiavelli and Hobbes to show that each contributed in a fundamental way to the formation of this liberal republicanism. Vickie B. Sullivan is Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. She is the author of Machiavelli’s Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed and the editor of The Comedy and Tragedy of Machiavelli: Essays on the Literary Works and the coeditor of Shakespeare’s Political Pageant: Essays in Politics and Literature. She has published articles in American Political Science Review, History of Political Thought, Political Theory, and Polity.
Machiavelli, Hobbes, and the Formation of a Liberal Republicanism in England
VICKIE B. SULLIVAN Tufts University
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To Daniel, Anne, and Joan “O brave new world / That has such people in’t!” – Shakespeare
Contents
Acknowledgments
page ix
Introduction
1
part i: the foundations of liberal republicanism 1 2
Machiavelli’s Republicanism Hobbes on Peace, the Passions, and Politics
31 80
part ii: the formation of the synthesis 3
Marchamont Nedham and the Beginnings of a Liberal Republicanism
4 5