This article offers a reinterpretation of the origins and character of the so-called ‘Cambridge School’ in the history of political thought by reconstructing the intellectual background to J.G.A. Pocock's 1962 essay ‘The History of Political Thought: A Methodological Enquiry’, typically regarded as the first statement of a ‘Cambridge’ approach. I argue that neither linguistic philosophy nor the celebrated work of Peter Laslett exerted a major influence on Pocock's work between 1948 and 1962. Instead, I emphasise the importance of Pocock's interest (...) in the history of historiography and of his doctoral supervisor, Herbert Butterfield. By placing Pocock's intellectual development in these contexts, I suggest, the autonomy of diverse versions of the ‘Cambridge’ approach can more readily be perceived. (shrink)

This new and up-to-date edition of a book that has been central to political philosophy, history, and revolutionary thought for two hundred years offers readers a dire warning of the consequences that follow the mismanagement of change. Written for a generation presented with challenges of terrible proportions--the Industrial, American, and French Revolutions, to name the most obvious--Burke's Reflections of the Revolution in France displays an acute awareness of how high political stakes can be, as well as a keen ability to (...) set contemporary problems within a wider context of political theory. (shrink)

The political philosophy of the British Idealists is distinguished by the effort to reconcile the human subject and the objective world of institutions. Idealists view the modern state as the reconciling ground of the autonomous person with social institutions which, while promoting the development of individuals, also give expression to their mutual recognition. This project of reconciliation is expressed in a vision of a common good society understood as a community of mutually dependent and mutually self-developing persons. Reciprocity of services (...) between ‘enabling state’ and ‘ethical citizenship’ lies at the heart of the common good society. Forged by a conceptual structure — comprising the state, rights, political obligation, citizenship and freedom — its reconciling force exposed the futility of a discourse of dichotomies which prevailed at the time — individualism-collectivism — and which has continued to raise its barren head in more recent dichotomous controversies, e.g. the communitarians/liberals and republicans/liberals discourses. (shrink)