The English republican tradition and eighteenth-century France offers
the first full account of the role played by seventeenth and
eighteenth-century English republican ideas in eighteenth-century
France. Challenging some of the dominant accounts of the republican
tradition, it revises conventional understandings of what republicanism
meant in both Britain and France during the eighteenth century, offering
a distinctive trajectory as regards ancient and modern constructions and
highlighting variety rather than homogeneity within the tradition.
Hammersley thus offers a new and fascinating perspective on both the
legacy of the English republican tradition and the origins and thought
of the French Revolution. The book is focused around a series of case
studies, which focus on a number of colourful and influential characters
including John Toland, Viscount Bolingbroke, John Wilkes and the Comte
de Mirabeau. This book will thus be of value to all those interested in
the fields of intellectual history and the history of political thought,
seventeenth and eighteenth-century British history, eighteenth-century
French history and French Revolution studies.