Time, History, and Political Thought

John Robertson is Honorary Professor of the History of Political Thought at the University of St Andrews and Professor Emeritus of the History of Political Thought at the University of Cambridge. Previously he taught at Oxford, and he has held visiting appointments in the United States, Italy, France and China. He is a Foreign Member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, Naples. His publications include The Case for the Enlightenment. Scotland and Naples 1680-1760 (2005), The Enlightenment. A Very Short Introduction (2015) and, as editor, A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the Union of 1707 (1995) and Andrew Fletcher: Political Works (1997).

• Introduction: Time, History, and Political Thought John Robertson; 1. Out of Time? Eternity, Christology, and Justinianic Law Caroline Humfress; 2. Historicity and Universality in Roman Law before 1600 Magnus Ryan; 3. 'The Logic of Authority and the Logic of Evidence' George Garnett; 4. Christian Time and the Commonwealth in early modern Political Thought Sarah Mortimer; 5. Politic History Kinch Hoekstra; 6. Hobbes on the Theology and Politics of Time Quentin Skinner; 7. The Recourse to Sacred History before the Enlightenment: Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise John Robertson; 8. Law, Chronology, and Scottish Conjectural History Aaron Garrett; 9. Civilization and Perfectibility: Conflicting Views of the History of Humankind? Silvia Sebastiani; 10. Kant on History, or Theodicy for Mortal Gods Chris Meckstroth; 11. Law's Histories in post-Napoleonic Germany Charlotte Johann; 12. After Historicism: The Politics of Time and History in Twentieth-Century Germany Waseem Yaqoob; 13. The Right to Rebel: History and Universality in the Political Thought of the Algerian Revolution Emma Stone Mackinnon; Bibliography; Index.

'This, in sum, is an ambitious volume, which seeks to win over Hobbes' successors in the timeless 'science of politics' on the one hand, and sceptics about the 'temporal turn' on the other. That it has any chance of success, in both pursuits, owes to the fact that the essays all impressively steer the course between the Scylla of wishy-washy pretension and the Charybdis of banality.' Samuel Rubinstein, Oxford Political Review