Freedom and the Construction of Europe

An internationally distinguished team of contributors explore the richness, diversity and complexity of ideas about freedom across early modern Europe.

Quentin Skinner (Edited by), Martin van Gelderen (Edited by)

9781107033078, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 March 2013

419 pages
25.3 x 18 x 2.7 cm, 0.91 kg

Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 2 considers free persons and free states, examining differing views about freedom of thought and action and their relations to conceptions of citizenship. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time.

Introduction Quentin Skinner
Part I. Free Persons and Freedom of Action: 1. Human freedom and Jesuit moral theology Annabel Brett
2. Freedom and self-possession: the case of Montaigne's Essais Felicity Green
3. Autonomy and inner freedom: Lipsius and the revival of stoicism Freya Sierhuis
4. Freedom of the will as a basis for equality: Descartes, Princess Elisabeth and Poullain de la Barre Martina Reuter
5. Language as a means and an obstacle to freedom: the case of Moses Mendelssohn Avi Lifschitz
Part II. Free Citizens and the State: 6. Liberty and citizenship in early modern English political discourse Iain Hampsher-Monk
7. Free elections and freedom of speech in English republican thought Antti Tahvanainen
8. John Milton's free citizens and the politics of the family Rosanna Cox
9. Vattel's Rousseau: Jus Gentium and the natural liberty of states Theodore Christov
10. The state of freedom: Kant and his conservative critics Reidar Maliks
11. Freedom and state action in German Enlightenment thought Alexander Schmidt
12. The political conditions of free agency: the case of Mary Wollstonecraft Lena Halldenius
Part III. Freedom and the Limits of Europe: 13. The idea of freedom in missionary writings about the new world Catherine Ballériaux
14. From European to cosmopolitan freedom Fonna Forman
15. Is political freedom an Islamic value? Michael Cook.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]