Montesquieu

Catherine Volpilhac-Auger is professor emerita at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (Lyon) and is the president of the Montesquieu Society.

• Introduction; 1. Monsieur de La Brède (1689–1705); 2. From La brède to Secondat de Montesquieu (1705–1713); 3. From Secondat to Montesquieu (1713–1721); 4. Taking Wing (1722–1727); 5. Europe on the horizon (1728–1731); 6. A new departure (1731–1738); 7. 'A labor of twenty years' (1736–1748); 8. The march to glory (1749–1755); 9. The final battle.

'As a biography, Catherine Volpilhac-Auger's Montesquieu is a fine specimen. As a work of history, however, it is even better. … What emerges from Volpilhac-Auger's well-documented work is a Montesquieu who is much diminished in his exceptionalism … And in writing what is ostensibly a biography, Volpilhac-Auger has managed far more: her Montesquieu throws new light on intellectual and cultural milieux one might have thought familiar, as well as puts others more decisively on the radar. Our map of the eighteenth century is far richer for it.' Shiru Shiru, Metascience