Popular Sovereignty in Historical Perspective

This collaborative volume offers the first historical reconstruction of the concept of popular sovereignty from antiquity to the twentieth century. First formulated between the late sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, the various early modern conceptions of the doctrine were heavily indebted to Roman reflection on forms of government and Athenian ideas of popular power. Th...

This collaborative volume offers the first historical reconstruction of the concept of popular sovereignty from antiquity to the twentieth century. First formulated between the late sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, the various early modern conceptions of the doctrine were heavily indebted to Roman reflection on forms of government and Athenian ideas of popular power. This study, edited by Richard Bourke and Quentin Skinner, traces successive transformations of the doctrine, rather than narrating a linear development. It examines critical moments in the career of popular sovereignty, spanning antiquity, medieval Europe, the early modern wars of religion, the revolutions of the eighteenth century and their aftermath, decolonisation and mass democracy. Featuring original work by an international team of scholars, the book offers a reconsideration of one of the formative principles of contemporary politics by exploring its descent from classical city-states to the advent of the modern state.

理查德·伯克，伦敦大学玛丽王后学院政治思想史教授、政治思想史研究中心主任。著有《和平在爱尔兰：思想之战》《帝国与革命：埃德蒙·伯克的政治人生》等。

昆廷·斯金纳，伦敦大学玛丽王后学院巴伯·博蒙特人文学科教授。著有《现代政治思想的基础》《霍布斯哲学思想中的理性和修辞》《霍布斯与共和主义自由》等。