This volume investigates the impact the first and third Earls of Shaftesbury had on Enlightenment thought. The focus is on both their tangible actions on the political stage of the day and on the more general intellectual repercussions of what these men stood for in word and deed. As a result, "Shaping Enlightenment Politics" offers important re-evaluations of what two towering figures of the age had to contribute to much-contested topics such as slavery, the discourse of civic humanism, or party politics.