内容简介

Henry St John. later Viscounr Bolingbroke,was one of the most ctrative political thinkers in eighteenth-century Britain,and his writings influenced British American Founding Fathers and French Revolutionaries.In this volume,modemised and fully annotated texts of his most important political works, the Dissertation upon Parties,the letter‘On the Spirit of Patriotism’,and The Idea of a Patriot King,are bought together for the first time.Bolingbroke was the first major ghinker to face the longterm economic and plitical consequences of the Glorious Revolution,particularly the creation of the first modem system of party politics.In
these works of the 1730s he attempted to forge an ideology of oposition to attack the Whig oligarchy of Sir Robert Walpole,using materials drawn from classical republicanism and neo-Stoicism as well as from contemporary Whig and Tory thought.His analyses of constitutional govemment and the party system are stioll relevant to the dilemmas to the common good and the necessity of a non-partisam executive.This volume is intended for undergraduate students and as such it contains a new introduction,a chronology of the main events in Bolingbroke‘s life and an invaluable guide to further reading.
DAVAD ARMTAGE is Associate Profesor of History at Colunbia University.He co-ceited Milton and Republicanism with Amand Himy and Quentin Skinner.