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When Istvan Hont died in 2013, the world lost a giant of
intellectual history. A leader of the Cambridge School of Political
Thought, Hont argued passionately for a global-historical approach
to political ideas. To better understand the development of
liberalism, he looked not only to the works of great thinkers but
also to their reception and use amid revolution and interstate
competition. His innovative program of study culminated in the
landmark 2005 book Jealousy of Trade, which explores the birth of
economic nationalism and other social effects of expanding
eighteenth-century markets. Markets, Morals, Politics brings
together a celebrated cast of Hont's contemporaries to assess his
influence, ideas, and methods. Richard Tuck, John Pocock, John
Dunn, Raymond Geuss, Gareth Stedman Jones, Michael Sonenscher, John
Robertson, Keith Tribe, Pasquale Pasquino, and Peter N. Miller
contribute original essays on themes Hont treated with penetrating
insight: the politics of commerce, debt, and luxury; the morality
of markets; and economic limits on state power. The authors delve
into questions about the relationship between states and markets,
politics and economics, through examinations of key Enlightenment
and pre-Enlightenment figures in context-Hobbes, Rousseau, Spinoza,
and many others. The contributors also add depth to Hont's
lifelong, if sometimes veiled, engagement with Marx. The result is
a work of interpretation that does justice to Hont's influence
while developing its own provocative and illuminating arguments.
Markets, Morals, Politics will be a valuable companion to readers
of Hont and anyone concerned with political economy and the history
of ideas.
Scholars normally emphasize the contrast between the two great
eighteenth-century thinkers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith.
Rousseau is seen as a critic of modernity, Smith as an apologist.
Istvan Hont, however, finds significant commonalities in their
work, arguing that both were theorists of commercial society and
from surprisingly similar perspectives. In making his case, Hont
begins with the concept of commercial society and explains why that
concept has much in common with what the German philosopher
Immanuel Kant called unsocial sociability. This is why many earlier
scholars used to refer to an Adam Smith Problem and, in a somewhat
different way, to a Jean-Jacques Rousseau Problem. The two
problems-and the questions about the relationship between
individualism and altruism that they raised-were, in fact, more
similar than has usually been thought because both arose from the
more fundamental problems generated by thinking about morality and
politics in a commercial society. Commerce entails reciprocity, but
a commercial society also entails involuntary social
interdependence, relentless economic competition, and intermittent
interstate rivalry. This was the world to which Rousseau and Smith
belonged, and Politics in Commercial Society is an account of how
they thought about it. Building his argument on the similarity
between Smith's and Rousseau's theoretical concerns, Hont shows the
relevance of commercial society to modern politics-the politics of
the nation-state, global commerce, international competition,
social inequality, and democratic accountability.
In the winter of 1807, while Berlin was occupied by French troops,
the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte presented fourteen public
lectures that have long been studied as a major statement of modern
nationalism. Yet Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation have also
been interpreted by many as a vision of a cosmopolitan alternative
to nationalism. This new edition of the Addresses is designed to
make Fichte's arguments more accessible to English-speaking
readers. The clear, readable, and reliable translation is
accompanied by a chronology of the events surrounding Fichte's
life, suggestions for further reading, and an index. The
groundbreaking introductory essay situates Fichte's theory of the
nation state in the history of modern political thought. It
provides historians, political theorists, and other students of
nationalism with a fresh perspective for considering the interface
between cosmopolitanism and republicanism, patriotism and
nationalism.
In the winter of 1807, while Berlin was occupied by French troops,
the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte presented fourteen public
lectures that have long been studied as a major statement of modern
nationalism. Yet Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation have also
been interpreted by many as a vision of a cosmopolitan alternative
to nationalism. This new edition of the Addresses is designed to
make Fichte's arguments more accessible to English-speaking
readers. The clear, readable, and reliable translation is
accompanied by a chronology of the events surrounding Fichte's
life, suggestions for further reading, and an index. The
groundbreaking introductory essay situates Fichte's theory of the
nation state in the history of modern political thought. It
provides historians, political theorists, and other students of
nationalism with a fresh perspective for considering the interface
between cosmopolitanism and republicanism, patriotism and
nationalism.
For many Enlightenment thinkers, discerning the relationship
between commerce and peace was the central issue of modern
politics. The logic of commerce seemed to require European states
and empires to learn how to behave in more peaceful, self-limiting
ways. However, as the fate of nations came to depend on the flux of
markets, it became difficult to see how their race for prosperity
could ever be fully disentangled from their struggle for power. On
the contrary, it became easy to see how this entanglement could
produce catastrophic results. This volume showcases the variety and
the depth of approaches to economic rivalry and the rise of public
finance that characterized Enlightenment discussions of
international politics. It presents a fundamental reassessment of
these debates about 'perpetual peace' and their legacy in the
history of political thought.
For many Enlightenment thinkers, discerning the relationship
between commerce and peace was the central issue of modern
politics. The logic of commerce seemed to require European states
and empires to learn how to behave in more peaceful, self-limiting
ways. However, as the fate of nations came to depend on the flux of
markets, it became difficult to see how their race for prosperity
could ever be fully disentangled from their struggle for power. On
the contrary, it became easy to see how this entanglement could
produce catastrophic results. This volume showcases the variety and
the depth of approaches to economic rivalry and the rise of public
finance that characterized Enlightenment discussions of
international politics. It presents a fundamental reassessment of
these debates about 'perpetual peace' and their legacy in the
history of political thought.
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