Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law - Hardcover

Annabel S. Brett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691141932 ISBN 13: 9780691141930

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Changes of State A book about the theory of the city or commonwealth, what would come to be called the state, in early modern natural law discourse. It takes a fresh approach by looking at this political entity from the perspective of its boundaries and those who crossed them. Full description

About this title

Review:

"With authority and grace, Annabel Brett reconstructs a richly challenging tradition of early modern reflection on human agency and political community. Her unfailingly acute and original analyses of the arguments of, among others, Vitoria, Soto, Suárez, Grotius, and Hobbes will be a revelation to political theorists, philosophers, and historians alike, and will decisively inform contemporary discussions of liberty, rights, and the fate of the state."--David Armitage, Harvard University

"This is an exceptionally erudite and original study that will be seen as a major contribution to the field and a landmark study for years to come. This provocative work will transform the way we think about the emergence of theories of the state and sovereignty."--James Tully, University of Victoria, Canada

"I cannot praise this book too highly; it is sophisticated, elegant, and original. Dealing with the emergence of the state from nature in early modern political thought, it becomes, almost imperceptibly, something else as well: a contemplation on and critique of the present politics of statehood and globalization, and of our understanding of the international political world. This is first-class intellectual history, a wonderful book."--Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki

"Annabel S. Brett has amassed a great deal of information and delivers it and, as importantly, original insights of great value, with elegance, impressively, memorably. . . . Highly recommended. What the Renaissance coped with in terms of balance between tradition and modernity, between mankind and nature, between freedom and order . . . and a new relationship between God and His creation, proves a worthy topic for an exceptionally talented scholar and a good read for the rest of us."--Bibliothe`que d'Humanisme et Renaissance

"The book's achievements are at several levels: as an impressively detailed intellectual history of some of the wide-ranging controversies preoccupying natural law theorists in sixteenth- to mid-seventeenth-century Europe; as a cogent analysis of what is at stake in Grotius's and above all Hobbes's significant developments of natural law theory; and as an innovative approach to the study of political thought."---Simon Kow, Canadian Journal of History

About the Author:

Annabel S. Brett is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. She is the author of "Liberty, Right, and Nature" and a new translation of Marsilius of Padua's "Defender of the Peace".

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0691141932
• ISBN 13: 9780691141930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 264