Written by one of the world's leading historians of political thought and published over the past three decades, the purpose of these essays is to present British history as the history of several nations interacting with--and sometimes seceding from--association with an imperial state. The commentary presents this history as that of an archipelago, situated in oceans and expanding across them to the Antipodes. Both New Zealand history and ways of seeing history formed in New Zealand enter into the vision.

This fourth volume in John Pocock's great sequence on Barbarism and Religion focuses on the idea of barbarism. Barbarism was central to the history of western historiography, to the history of the enlightenment, and to Edward Gibbon himself. As a concept it was deeply problematic to enlightened historians seeking to understand their own civil societies in the light of exposure to newly-discovered civilizations hitherto beyond the reach of history. The troubled relationship between philosophy and history is addressed directly in this fourth volume.

In this volume distinguished historians and political scientists examine political discourse during that short span of years from the Revolution through ratification, a period of profound political and conceptual change. The concepts of "sovereignty," "representation," "liberty," "virtue," "republic," "democracy"--even "constitution" itself--were virtually recoined. Others, like "federalism," were new inventions. Out of the vehement political arguments and debates of the period came not only a new Constitution but a new political vocabulary--a political idiom that was distinctly recognizably...

This fourth volume in John Pocock's great sequence on Barbarism and Religion focuses on the idea of barbarism. Barbarism was central to the history of western historiography, to the history of the enlightenment, and to Edward Gibbon himself. As a concept it was deeply problematic to enlightened historians seeking to understand their own civil societies in the light of exposure to newly-discovered civilizations hitherto beyond the reach of history. The troubled relationship between philosophy and history is addressed directly in this fourth volume.

The second volume of Barbarism and Religion explores the historiography of Enlightenment, and looks at Gibbon's intellectual relationship with writers sucah as Giannone, Voltaire, Hume, Robertson, Ferguson and Adam Smith. Edward Gibbon's intellectual trajectory is both similar but at points crucially distinct from the dominant Latin "Enlightened narrative" these thinkers developed. The interaction of philosophy, erudition and narrative is central to enlightened historiography, and John Pocock again shows how the Decline and Fall is both akin to but distinct from the historiographical context...

John Pocock is arguably the most original and imaginative historian of ideas of modern times. Over the past half century he has created an audience for his work which is truly global, and he has marked the way in which the history of political thought is studied as deeply and personally as any historian of the period. The essays in this major new collection are selected from a lifetime of thinking about political thought, and how we should study it in history. What in fact does it mean to write the history of a political society, and what kind of political thought is this? Professor Pocock...

This fifth volume in John Pocock's acclaimed sequence on Barbarism and Religion turns to the controversy caused by Edward Gibbon's treatment of the early Christian church. Examining this controversy in unprecedented depth, Pocock challenges the assumption that Gibbon wrote with the intention of destroying belief in the Christian revelation, and questions our understanding of the character of 'enlightenment'. Reconsidering the genesis, inception and reception of these crucial chapters of Decline and Fall, Pocock explores the response of Gibbon's critics, affirming that his reputation as an...

Sixth and final volume in an acclaimed series situating Edward Gibbon in a series of contexts in eighteenth-century European history.

Sixth and final volume in an acclaimed series situating Edward Gibbon in a series of contexts in eighteenth-century European history.