Montesquieu and the Despotic Ideas of Europe: An Interpretation of "The Spirit of the Laws"

Synopsis

Montesquieu Is Famous As A Tireless Critic Of Despotism, Which He Associates Overtly With Asia And The Middle East And Not With The Apparently More Moderate Western Models Of Governance Found Throughout Europe. However, Vickie B. Sullivan Argues That A Creaful Reading Of Montesquieu's Enormously Influential The Spirit Of The Law Reveals The Surprising Result That He Recognizes That Europe Itself Is Susceptible To Despotic Practices - And That The Threat Emanates Not From The East But Rather From Certain Despotic Ideas That Inform Western Institutions And Practices. Sullivan Guides Readers Through Montesquieu's Sometimes Veiled Yet Sharply Critical Accounts Of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Aristotle, And Plato, As Well As Various Christian Thinkers Have Brough Forth Despotic Ideas In The Form, For Example, Of Brutal Machiavellianism, Of Hobbes's Justifications For The Rule Of One, Of Plato's Reasoning That Denied Slaves The Right Of Natural Defense, And Of The Christian Teachings That Equated Heresy With Treason. Such Ideas, Montesquieu Shows, Inform Such Revered European Institutions As The French Monarchy And The Roman Catholic Church. In This New Reading Of Montesquieu's Masterwork, Sullivan Corrects The Misconception That It Offers Simple, Objective Observations, Showing It To Be Instead A Powerful Critique Of European Politics That Would Become Remarkably And Regrettably Prescient After Montesquieu's Death, When Despotism Repeatedly Emerged In Europe With Virulent Intensity. -- From Dust Jacket. The Ideas Of Montesquieu's Modern European Predecessors. The Greatness Of Machiavelli And The Despotic Disease Of His Politics -- Both Princely And Republican -- Montesquieu's Attack On The Political Errors Of Hobbes -- Christian Ideas. Religious Ideas And The Force Of Christian Ones In Modern Europe -- The Ideas Of Early Christianity, Their Absorption In Roman Law, And Their Abusive Reverberations In Modern Europe -- The Ideas Of The Ancient Legislators. Montesquieu's Opposition To Plato's Belles Idées And Their Diffusion -- Aristotle's Manner Of Thinking And The Deleterious Use Of His Ideas. Vickie B. Sullivan. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.