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"Everyone is convinced that this book lacks method, that there is neither plan nor order and that after one has read it one doesn't know what he has read." So ran Voltaire's take on Montesquieu's On the spirit of laws (1748), a sentiment that resonates among readers to this day. This study seeks to recover Montesquieu's meaning by placing his work in its historical context. Taking its cues from eclectic targets and foils, it demonstrates how he sought to couch an "unnatural" argument-that states become stronger by giving primacy to property rights, and restraining their own proclivity for…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
"Everyone is convinced that this book lacks method, that there is neither plan nor order and that after one has read it one doesn't know what he has read." So ran Voltaire's take on Montesquieu's On the spirit of laws (1748), a sentiment that resonates among readers to this day. This study seeks to recover Montesquieu's meaning by placing his work in its historical context. Taking its cues from eclectic targets and foils, it demonstrates how he sought to couch an "unnatural" argument-that states become stronger by giving primacy to property rights, and restraining their own proclivity for expansion-in terms that might make it palatable to his target audience. This fresh approach casts the work in a light as instructive for political theorists as intellectual historians. Montesquieu's theory emerges as a bridge between two aspects of the modern theory of the state-the 17th century emphasis on its military function, and the later focus on the economy-in short, between Hobbes and Adam Smith.
Autorenporträt
STEPHEN BUTLER is co-founder of Framework, a consultancy. He has worked as an edtech CEO and a TSX 60 corporate development executive, and helped develop the Growth Driver Program for High Impact Firms at the Business Development Bank of Canada. An accomplished keynote speaker, his talk, "Why Your Job Isn't Meaningless," was featured globally by TEDx in 2024. He holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences (Cambridge),a BA (Hons) in Economics and Political Science (McGill), and taught at Harvard as a Visiting Fellow. He lives in Calgary and San Francisco.