Spirit of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters

Jeffrey Church is professor of political science at the University of Houston.Alin Fumurescu is associate professor of political science at the University of Houston. Constantine Vassiliou is visiting assistant professor in political science at the University of Houston.

• Foreword, Helena RosenblattAcknowledgmentsPART I: The Persian Letters in the History of Political TheoryChapter 1. Philosophizing the Passions: The Seraglio as Laboratory in the Persian Letters Céline SpectorChapter 2. Conflict in the Persian Letters, Pauline KraChapter 3. Persian Letters in Time: Adhesive Past: Bright, Unstable Present: Divergent, Fragile Futures, Michael MosherPART II: The Persian Letters on Nature and Convention in PoliticsChapter 4. Pitfalls of Abstract Ideals: Usbek on the Law of Nations, Andrea RadasanuChapter 5. Faces of Monarchy in West and East and the Limits of Traditional Jurisprudence: Montesquieu in Dialogue with Bodin in the Persian Letters, Rebecca KingstonChapter 6. The Struggle for Recognition and the Economy of Esteem in and out of the Seraglio, Robert SparlingPART III: The Persian Letters on Commercial SocietyChapter 7. The Plague of High Finance in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, Emily Nacol and Constantine Christos VassiliouChapter 8. The Political

Montesquieu’s Persian Letters is one of the gems of the Enlightenment, at once amusing and profound, accessible and sophisticated. This marvelous collection of essays not only does justice to the book’s complexities but also demonstrates that the issues and questions raised by Montesquieu’s story remain as relevant today as they were three centuries ago.