1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910777011603321

Autore

Rahe Paul Anthony

Titolo

Against throne and altar : Machiavelli and political theory under the English Republic / / Paul A. Rahe [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2008

ISBN

1-107-18598-X

1-281-25505-X

9786611255053

0-511-38268-5

0-511-38735-0

0-511-50965-0

0-511-38633-8

0-511-38450-5

0-511-38834-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xii, 442 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

320.092/241

Soggetti

Republicanism - Great Britain - History - 17th century

Great Britain Politics and government 1649-1660

Great Britain History Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1660

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Prologue: Machiavelli in the English Revolution -- Machiavelli's populist turn -- The ravages of an ambitious idleness -- The classical republicanism of John Milton -- The liberation of captive minds -- Marchamont Nedham and the regicide Republic -- Servant of the rump -- The good old cause -- Thomas Hobbes's republican youth -- The making of a modern monarchist -- The very model of a modern moralist -- The Hobbesian republicanism of James Harrington.

Sommario/riassunto

Modern republicanism - distinguished from its classical counterpart by its commercial character and jealous distrust of those in power, by its use of representative institutions, and by its employment of a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances - owes an immense debt to the republican experiment conducted in England



between 1649, when Charles I was executed, and 1660, when Charles II was crowned. Though abortive, this experiment left a legacy in the political science articulated both by its champions, John Milton, Marchamont Nedham, and James Harrington, and by its sometime opponent and ultimate supporter, Thomas Hobbes. This volume examines these four thinkers, situates them with regard to the novel species of republicanism first championed in the early 1500s by Niccolò Machiavelli, and examines the debt that he and they owed the Epicurean tradition in philosophy and the political science crafted by the Arab philosophers Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroës.