The relevance of the eighteenth century to modern political theory

Date
2022
Advisor
Instructor
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
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
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.

Course
Other identifiers
Book Title
Keywords
Paul Sagar, Eighteenth century, Adam Smith, Commercial society, Political theory
Citation
Published Version (Please cite this version)