This volume of essays discusses the weaknesses in modern political theory and suggests how they might begin to be remedied.

Quentin Skinner's classic study The Foundations of Modern Political Thought was first published by Cambridge in 1978. This was the first of a series of outstanding publications that have changed forever the way the history of political thought is taught and practised. Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought looks afresh at the impact of the original work, asks why it still matters, and considers a number of significant agendas that it still inspires. A very distinguished international team of contributors has been assembled, including John Pocock, Richard Tuck and David Armitage, and the result is an unusually powerful and cohesive contribution to the history of ideas, of interest to large numbers of students of early modern history and political thought. In conclusion, Skinner replies to each chapter and presents his own thoughts on the latest trends and the future direction of the history of political thought.

In Rethinking Obligation, Nancy J. Hirschmann provides an innovative analysis of liberal obligation theory that uses feminism as a theoretical method for rethinking political obligations from the bottom up. In articulating a feminist method for political theory, Hirschmann skillfully brings together theoretical categories and methods previously seen as opposed: feminist standpoint and postmodernism, gender psychology and anti-essentialism, empiricism and interpretivism. Rethinking Obligation mounts a vital challenge to central aspects of liberal theory. Students and scholars of political philosophy, political theory, feminist theory, and women’s studies will want to read it.

Bhikhu Parekh argues for a pluralist perspective on cultural diversity. Writing from both within the liberal tradition and outside of it as a critic, he challenges what he calls the "moral monism" of much of traditional moral philosophy, including contemporary liberalism--its tendency to assert that only one way of life or set of values is worthwhile and to dismiss the rest as misguided or false. He defends his pluralist perspective both at the level of theory and in subtle nuanced analyses of recent controversies. Thus, he offers careful and clear accounts of why cultural differences should be respected and publicly affirmed, why the separation of church and state cannot be used to justify the separation of religion and politics, and why the initial critique of Salman Rushdie (before a Fatwa threatened his life) deserved more serious attention than it received. Rejecting naturalism, which posits that humans have a relatively fixed nature and that culture is an incidental, and "culturalism," which posits that they are socially and culturally constructed with only a minimal set of features in common, he argues for a dialogic interplay between human commonalities and cultural differences. This will allow, Parekh argues, genuinely balanced and thoughtful compromises on even the most controversial cultural issues in the new multicultural world in which we live.

This insightful and wide-ranging volume traces the genesis of international intellectual thought, connecting international and global history with intellectual history.

What were Shakespeare's politics? As this study demonstrates, contained in Shakespeare's plays is an astonishingly powerful reckoning with the tradition of Western political thought, one whose depth and scope places Shakespeare alongside Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes and others. This book is the first attempt by a political theorist to read Shakespeare within the trajectory of political thought as one of the authors of modernity. From Shakespeare's interpretation of ancient and medieval politics to his wrestling with issues of legitimacy, religious toleration, family conflict, and economic change, Alex Schulman shows how Shakespeare produces a fascinating map of modern politics at its crisis-filled birth. As a result, there are brand new readings of Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, Richard II and Henry IV, parts I and II , The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure.

The two volumes of The Foundations of Modern Political Thought are intended as both an introduction to the period for students, and a presentation and justification of a particular approach to the interpretation of historical texts. -- Book Cover.