Posts com a Tag ‘Political Thought in the French Wars of Religion (T)’

Sophie Nicholls | Imagem: University of Oxford

The book series ‘Ideas in Context’, published by Cambridge University Press since 1984, has played a major role in establishing the history of political thought as a prominent field of research and debate. Although the series’ roots lie in the so-called Cambridge school of intellectual history associated with J.G.A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and others, its volumes have always set out to break down any ‘artificial distinctions between the history of philosophy, of the various sciences, of society and politics, and of literature’.(1)  It is perhaps surprising that until now no volumes in the series have focused on the political thought of the French Wars of Religion (c.1562-c.1598), a period known not only for confessional violence, dynastic crisis, and social rupture, but also for major controversies over questions of authority and resistance, liberty and rights, and other issues that are crucial to the study of early modern political thought.(2)  Nevertheless, path-breaking studies of the political thought of Jean Bodin, François Hotman, and key figures in sixteenth-century French intellectual history published with Cambridge University Press by Julian Franklin, Ralph Giesey, and J.H. Salmon all preceded the series and perhaps helped to establish its terms.(3)

Thirty-seven years after the ‘Ideas in Context’ series was founded, these important new books by Emma Claussen and Sophie Nicholls both advance the series in new directions and bring it back to its roots in the intellectual history of sixteenth-century France. Their complementary approaches engage closely with established interpretations in the field, but also overcome them by offering new readings of key texts and alternative ways to interpret them, breaking down disciplinary distinctions between the history of literature, philosophy, and politics. Claussen’s eloquent and innovative book explores the uses and ambiguities of the term politique throughout the Wars of Religion, and gives a new history of this keyword that traces its movement from a disciplinary descriptor of political science in the 1560s and 1570s to a polemical weapon of partisan abuse. Leia Mais