Originally published in 1993, this collection of essays, all by pre-eminent exponents of the history of political thought, explores the political ideologies of early modern Britain. Organised on a broadly chronological basis, the topics addressed by individual scholars reflect in general the themes initiated and inspired by the work of the distinguished intellectual historian J. G. A. Pocock, for whom the collection is intended as a tribute. Each of the sixteen contributors have thought long and critically about Pocock's seminal contributions to the subject, and in each essay they engage with the debates he has provoked. As a fitting conclusion to the volume, Professor Pocock responds to the essays and provided his personal interpretation of the themes they invoke.

Review of the hardback:‘This volume is then two things at once: a tribute to the immense and continuing achievement of John Pocock; and an attempt to identify alternative agendas within which to locate and to understand the malleability of early modern political thought. It is to be welcomed for both, and even more for the dialectic it has set up between them.’Times Literary Supplement John Morrill

Review of the hardback:‘This exciting and important collection … deserves widespread attention …’Archives