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      • Faculty of Economics, Administrative And Social Sciences
      • Department of Political Science and Public Administration
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      The relevance of the eighteenth century to modern political theory

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      Author(s)
      Alexander, James
      Date
      2022
      Source Title
      European Journal of Political Theory
      Print ISSN
      1474-8851
      Electronic ISSN
      1741-2730
      Publisher
      SAGE
      Volume
      0
      Issue
      0
      Pages
      1 - 9
      Language
      English
      Type
      Article
      Item Usage Stats
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      Abstract
      The eighteenth century is still the bottleneck of the history of political theory: the century that separates pre-economic theorists such as Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes from post-economic theorists such as Hegel, Mill and Marx. Political thinking became immeasurably much more complicated in the eighteenth century: and yet historians, after at least half a century of extremely judicious scholarship, still have difficulty explaining its significance for contemporary theory. Sagar’s Adam Smith Reconsidered is an important contribution to the attempt to clarify just how modern political theorists should look backward – without hastening back to the abstractions of the seventeenth century or remaining confined to particular involutions of the nineteenth century. Its specific originality is in drawing attention to two important ideas of Adam Smith, seldom seen clearly or at all, ‘the quirk of rationality’ and ‘the conspiracy of merchants’. Political theorists as well as historians of political thought will benefit from familiarising themselves with these ideas.
      Keywords
      Paul Sagar
      Eighteenth century
      Adam Smith
      Commercial society
      Political theory
      Permalink
      http://hdl.handle.net/11693/111458
      Published Version (Please cite this version)
      https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14748851221141030
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      • Department of Political Science and Public Administration 640
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