Political Thought

  • Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments

    by Benjamin Constant

    In Principles of Politics, first published in 1815, Constant explores the subjects of law, sovereignty, and representation; power and accountability; government, property, and taxation; wealth and poverty; war, peace, and the maintenance of public order; and freedom, of the individual, of the press, and of religion. Benjamin Constant (1767–1830), born in Switzerland, became one of France’s leading writers, as well…

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  • The Pure Theory of Politics

    by Bertrand de Jouvenel

    This is the final volume in Jouvenel’s magnum opus, the trilogy that begins with On Power, moves to Sovereignty, and concludes with The Pure Theory of Politics. In this volume, Bertrand de Jouvenel proposes to remedy a serious deficiency in political science: “the lack of agreement on first principles, or ‘elements.’” The author’s concern is with political processes as they…

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  • Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays

    by Michael Oakeshott

    Rationalism in Politics established the late Michael Oakeshott as the leading conservative political theorist in modern Britain. This expanded collection of essays astutely points out the limits of “reason” in rationalist politics and criticizes ideological schemes to reform society according to supposedly “scientific” or rationalistic principles that ignore the wealth and variety of human experience. Timothy Fuller is Professor of…

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  • Select Works of Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France

    by Edmund Burke

    Originally published by Oxford University Press in the 1890s, the famed three-volume Payne edition of Select Works is universally revered by students of English history and political thought. Faithfully reproduced in each volume are E. J. Payne’s notes and introductory essays. Francis Canavan, one of the great Burke scholars of the twentieth century, has added forewords. Volume 2 consists of…

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  • The Revolutionary Writings of Alexander Hamilton

    by Alexander Hamilton

    Alexander Hamilton, trusted military aide and secretary to General George Washington, wrote to persuade. He had the ability to clarify the complex issues of his time without oversimplifying them. From the basic core values established in his earlier writings to the more assertive vision of government in his mature work, we see how Hamilton’s thought responded to the emerging nation…

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  • The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams

    by John Adams

    The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams presents the principal shorter writings in which Adams addresses the prospect of revolution and the form of government proper to the new United States. This collection illustrates that it was Adams who, before the Revolution, wrote some of the most important documents on the nature of the British Constitution and the meaning of rights,…

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  • The Roots of Liberty

    by Ellis Sandoz

    The Roots of Liberty is a critical collection of essays on the origin and nature of the often elusive idea of liberty. The essays address early medieval developments, encompassing such seminal issues as the common-law mind of the sixteenth century under the Tudor monarchs, the struggle for power and authority between the Stuart kings and Parliament in the seventeenth century,…

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  • The Sacred Rights of Conscience

    by Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall

    The Sacred Rights of Conscience contains original documents from both public and private papers, such as constitutions, statutes, legislative resolutions, speeches, sermons, newspapers, letters, and diaries. These documents provide a vivid reminder that religion was a dynamic factor in shaping American social, legal, and political culture and that there has been a struggle since the inception of the Republic to…

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  • Scholasticism and Politics

    by Jacques Maritain

    Scholasticism and Politics, first published in 1940, is a collection of nine lectures Maritain delivered at the University of Chicago in 1938. Maritain championed the cause of what he called personalist democracy—a regime committed to popular sovereignty, constitutionalism, limited government, and individual freedom. He believed a personalist democracy offered the modern world the possibility of a political order most in…

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  • Selected Writings of Lord Acton

    by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

    Lord Acton was among the most illustrious historians of nineteenth-century England, a man of great learning with a deep devotion to individual liberty and a profound understanding of history. Liberty Fund is proud to offer the most complete collection of Acton essays ever published. Volume I: Essays in the History of Liberty Included are his two famous essays on the…

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  • The Servile State

    by Hilaire Belloc

    Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) was one of the most respected men of his day for his learning, insight, wit, and brilliant literary style. Author of over a hundred books and articles, Belloc was a journalist, polemicist, social and political analyst, literary critic, poet, and novelist. The Servile State has endured as his most important political work. The effect of socialist doctrine…

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  • Socialism

    by Ludwig von Mises

    More than thirty years ago F. A. Hayek said of Socialism: “It was a work on political economy in the tradition of the great moral philosophers, a Montesquieu or Adam Smith, containing both acute knowledge and profound wisdom. . . . To none of us young men who read the book when it appeared was the world ever the same…

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