David Wootton

The coming of the book : the impact of printing 1450-1800

The emergence of the book was an event of world historical importance, and heralded the dawning of modernity. In this much praised history of that momentous process, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, with the study of modes of consciousness to root the development of printing in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe.

The essential Federalist and anti-Federalist papers

Here, in a single volume, is a selection of the classic critiques of the new Constitution penned by such ardent defenders of states rights and personal liberty as George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Melancton Smith; pro-Constitution writings by James Wilson and Noah Webster; and thirty-three of the best-known and most crucial Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. The texts of the chief constitutional documents of the early Republic are included as well. David Woottons illuminating Introduction examines the history of such American principles of government as checks and balances, the separation of powers, representation by election, and judicial independence--including their roots in the largely Scottish, English, and French new science of politics. It also offers suggestions for reading The Federalist, the classic elaboration of these principles written in defense of a new Constitution that sought to apply them to the young Republic.

John Locke and Richard Ashcraft's Revolutionary Politics

This article assesses Richard Ashcrafts Revolutionary Politics and Lockes ‘Two Treatises of Government’. It argues that Lockes dealings with the colony of Carolina show that he was a social conservative in the 1670s. The text of the Second Treatise does not support Ashcrafts claim that Locke held similar views on the franchise to those of the Levellers. The views he expressed in 1688 suggest that he wanted to preserve, not transform, the ancient constitution. His Report on Poor Relief shows that he was unsympathetic to the poor in 1697. Although Ashcraft is right to portray Locke as working for revolution between 1681 and 1688, and although his redating of the Second Treatise is persuasive, he overstates Lockes social and political radicalism.

Leveller democracy and the Puritan Revolution

The Leveller movement The Levellers were a political movement united around the programme of the first Agreement of the People (3 November 1647; Wolfe 1944, pp. 223–34). That Agreement is the first proposal in history for a written constitution based on inalienable natural rights. It embodied three essential principles. The first, though ambiguously expressed, was taken by contemporaries to be that any property qualification for the franchise should be abolished: even the poor should have the right to vote. The second was that the representative assembly should have supreme authority in making law, appointing magistrates, and conducting foreign policy: the king, if any, was to be accountable to his subjects. The third principle was that the powers of government be limited by the principles of natural justice. This meant, first, that all laws must apply equally to all subjects: there must be no privileged estate or corporation. This also implied the illegality of all monopolies. Second, all subjects had the right to freedom of conscience, entitling them to dissent from any established state religion. This also implied a right to freedom of expression. Third, conscription was banned: subjects could not be compelled to serve in an army if they disapproved of the cause for which it was to fight, although they could be compelled to pay taxes. Finally, all laws ‘must be good, and not evidently destructive to the safety and well-being of the people’. This implied both the right of juries to refuse to enforce bad law, and an ultimate right of revolution: if the peoples representatives betrayed their trust, the nation as a whole could assert its ultimate sovereignty.

Lucien Febvre and the Problem of Unbelief in the Early Modern Period

In 1942 Lucien Febvre published what has long been regarded as one of the masterpieces of Annales history in general, and the finest example of the histoire des mentalites in particular, Le probleme de lincroyance au XVIe siecle: La religion de Rabelais. Forty years later it finally appeared in a long-overdue English translation. i Anyone reading Febvres fine book-one of the most stimulating and exciting history books to be written this century-is bound to wonder how far his arguments have stood the test of time. Since the English translation provides no assistance in answering this question, and since the last decade has seen more progress in this field than did the three postwar decades put together, my purpose here is to reexamine the broad outlines of the problem of unbelief, leaving to one side Febvres detailed analysis of the religion of Rabelais.2 Febvres work played a major role in establishing what became for many an unquestionable intellectual dogma: that there was no atheism to be found in the sixteenth or even seventeenth centuries.3 Febvre argued that Rabelais, far from being the atheist portrayed by Abel Lefranc, was a pious Christian. Numerous other authors have undergone similar transformations in the last few decades: Montaigne, Hobbes, and Bayle, for example. Bayle himself said that writing history was like cooking: to try to find truth and falsehood in interpretations of history would be as pointless as trying to reduce cookery to a science. Instead

Radicalism and Reverence: The Political Thought of Gerrard Winstanley.

One of the most undeservedly neglected political theorists of the seventeenth century, Gerrard Winstanley is a fascinating figure who wrote broadly and creatively on issues that appear surprisingly modern to his present-day readers. His theoretical approach to the English revolution knit together such diverse concerns as Puritanism, the emerging market economy, and the dilemmas of radical politics. His strong commitment to both personal autonomy and collective action led him towards an alternative to the Puritanism, market institutions, and political violence that he analyzed. In his incisive new book, George Shulman examines the life and work of this important thinker. He traces Winstanleys movement from theorizing about God and the rebirth of the self to active leadership of the diggers, a group of radical activists who occupied not yet enclosed common lands. As Winstanley both used and moved beyond his own Puritan heritage, he was able to confront the social and political realities of his time in a language that related them to psychological experience. His richly metaphoric language, and the vision of freedom it embodied, joined psychological, social, and political dimensions of life. By imaginatively reconstructing Winstanleys unified approach to the 1640s, this book seeks to illuminate what was at stake at that time and relate it to contemporary debates about the self, politics, and language. Shulman creates a conversation across time about questions that still animate thinkers today.

Helvétius From Radical Enlightenment to Revolution

It is a remarkable fact that of all the ideas and aspirations which led up to the Revolution the concept and desire of political liberty, in the full sense of the term, were the last to emerge, as they were also the first to pass away. Alexis de TocquevilleMesurant la reception du traite «De lesprit» (1758) dHelvetius dans la culture des Lumieres, lA. montre que le texte a ete interprete par ses contemporains comme un appel republicain a la revolution. Dans un exercice dhistoire appliquee, lA. confronte Helvetius a Dragonetti et Paine, dune part, et met en evidence lemergence dune theorie radicale de la propriete dans le traite «De lhomme» (1773), dautre part.

Gender and power in shrew-taming narratives, 1500-1700

Notes on Contributors Introduction G.Holderness Reading Shrews in Pamphlets and Plays A.Bayman & G.Southcombe Shrews, Marriage and Murder S.Clark Engendering Shrews, Mediaeval to Early Modern H.S.Crocker He speaks very shrewishly: Apprentice-training and The Taming of the Shrew R.Madelaine The Shrew as Editor/Editing Shrews L.S.Marcus Putting the Silent Woman back into the Shakespearean Shrew M.Maurer and B.Gaines Unknown Shrews: Three Transformations of The/A Shrew H.J.Helmers Ye sid he taken my Counsel sir: Restoration Satire and Theatrical Authority C.Conaway Darkenes was before light: Hierarchy and Duality in The Taming of A Shrew G.Holderness The Gendered Stomach in The Taming of the Shrew J.Purnis The Tamer Tamed, or None Shall Have Prizes: Equality in Shakespeares England D.Wootton Afterword A.Thompson Index

Reginald Scot / Abraham Fleming / The Family of Love

My title’s eccentric punctuation reflects the problematic character of my subject, which is the last book of Reginald Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), ‘A Discourse upon divels and spirits’: a discourse that is relatively inaccessible, and consequently rarely read.1 The views expressed in that book are very odd, but are strikingly reminiscent of those of Scot’s collaborator, Abraham Fleming, who is best known as the editor of the posthumous edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587) (often referred to as ‘Shakespeare’s Holinshed’), but who is primarily of interest here as the author of The Diamond of Devotion (1581). My argument is that the religion of Scot (1538?–1599) and Fleming (1552?–1607) is that of the Family of Love, a cult founded by Hendrick Niclaes (1502?–1580?).

The Tamer Tamed, or None Shall Have Prizes: “Equality” in Shakespeare’s England

Since the 2003 Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tamer Tamed (in conjunction with The Taming of the Shrew) there has been a growing consensus that Fletcher’s play is a “pro-woman” or “feminist” text, and this consensus is consolidated in Celia R. Daileader’s and Gary Taylor’s edition (2006).1 As such, the text becomes one of the most striking early-modern feminist texts, and an important case-study for any consideration of the limits of the Jacobean mind.