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On Aaron Herold's interpretation, Tocqueville understands that human beings long for a type of transcendence that cannot be satisfied merely by the earthly goods that liberalism promises. Herold finds Tocqueville writing artfully to attempt to return human beings to a deeper understanding of themselves, and in so doing, exercising a type of statesmanship in his writing. This review raises three questions regarding Herold's presentation of Tocqueville: first, the degree to which noble self-sacrifice is embedded in the American tradition; second, the ultimate status of religious toleration as a moral good in Tocqueville's thought; and third, Tocqueville's view of the relation of religion and philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the important contributions to the scholarship of Benjamin Straumann's Crisis and Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution. Straumann argues that Cicero elaborated a notion of constitutionalism that contains important proto-liberal ideas. In focusing so intently on tracing the appeal to natural rights in constitutional thinking, Straumann excludes from his analysis important reflections on the Roman constitution which do not rely on natural rights, but which still elaborate important and influential features of constitutionalism such as institutions and safeguards. Straumann's narrow focus appears to induce him to reject the possibility that Machiavelli has anything worthwhile to contribute to an understanding of the Roman constitution and thus to miss the impact that the Florentine had on later thinkers in the very constitutional tradition that Straumann is so intent to highlight and explicate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author discusses political philosopher Charles Montesquieu and his book "The Spirit of the Laws." Also cited are Montesquieu's radical thoughts as shown in his opposition to despotism based on classical philosophy and Christianity, as well as the comments of Christopher Kelly and Bryan-Paul Frost on Montesquieu.

Waller R. Newell inTyrants: A History of Power, Injustice, and Terrorexplores how ideas, and the philosophers responsible for them, can aid us in understanding tyranny. In the process, Newell also broaches the possibility that the ideas of these thinkers actually shape succeeding political events. Although the second part, entitled “City of God or City of Man? The Tyrant as Modern State Builder,” has an extensive cast of characters, its fulcrum is the combination of Niccolò Machiavelli, the Florentine writer, and Henry VIII, the English ruler. Newell raises the question of whether the writer presented the ruler with the blueprint for overturning the rule of the Catholic Church in England. Machiavelli would thus be the teacher of the modernizing tyrant. A reader is left to wonder whether, in Newell's assessment, the articulation of Machiavelli's fundamental insight that the world can and should be remade by the human will does not lead necessarily to ever deepening violations which characterize totalitarian tyranny. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholars have pointed to Montesquieu's influence on Rousseau's work generally. Other scholars, who focus more intently on the Letter to d'Alembert, discern a crucial but limited influence of Montesquieu in two of Rousseau's teachings there: first, that some practices, including the theatre, can be appropriate and even wholesome for some societies, while noxious for others; and second, that mores are important in determining what types of laws and institutions a given people can tolerate and maintain. Careful consideration of Rousseau's Letter in light of Montesquieu's Persian Letters and Spirit of the Laws reveals a much more pervasive influence, however. Rousseau's depictions of the theatre as well as his discussions of the role of women in both French and English society reveal that the Letter bears a striking resemblance to, and, in fact, appears to be a response to, aspects of Montesquieu's thought. Montesquieu's captivating depictions of the sociability that the French theatre can engender was surely an obstacle for Rousseau's opposition to its influence in Geneva. In resisting such influence, Rousseau counters many of Montesquieu's specific arguments and judgements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]