QUENTIN SKINNER is Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College.

• 1. Introduction; 2. The rediscovery of republican values; 3. Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the portrayal of virtuous government; 4. Ambrogio Lorenzetti on the power and glory of republics; 5. Republican virtues in an age of princes; 6. Machiavelli on virtu and the maintenance of liberty; 7. The idea of negative liberty: Machiavelli and modern perspectives; 8. Thomas More's Utopia and the virtue of true nobility; 9. Was there a Calvinist theory of revolution? 10. Moral ambiguity and the renaissance art of eloquence; 11. John Milton and the politics of slavery; 12. Classical liberty, Renaissance translation and the English civil war; 13. From the state of princes to the modern state; 14. Augustan party politics and Renaissance constitutional thought.

'As a retrospective showcase of the work of a major scholar, this is impressive. Skinner's ability to combine political and philosophical insight with minute knowledge of several centuries of political literature is awe inspiring.' Robert Sugden, The Times Higher Education Supplement