Mark Hulliung

This book explores the major political debates in England during the final decades of the eighteenth century, a period when responses to the American and French Revolutions were a major concern and the entire future of public life in England was in question. Offering an in-depth treatment of the political pamphlets and literature of the time, this book examines the voices of both the radicals and their detractors. The volume attempts to do justice to the talented radical Whigs Edmund Burke demeaned in Reflections on the Revolution in France, and who have been long forgotten, buried unfairly under the memory of the excesses of French revolutionary violence. This accessibly written volume is perfect for undergraduates, graduates, and professors of history, political science, and literature.

This book offers an examination of responses to Edmund Burke from the last decades of the eighteenth century to the present day, ending with the question whether there is still a role for him to play in post-Thatcher England. It includes a chapter asking the same question about America. The sharp focus on Burke's legacy permits the author to cover a great many years while remaining quite concise. Written in an accessible style, modest in length, covering major debates in England over the course of two centuries and more, this book aims to reach out to as many potential readers as possible.

In 1955 Louis Hartz published a volume titled The Liberal Tradition in America, in which he argued that liberalism was the one and only American tradition. Since then scholars of New Left and neoconservative persuasion have offered an alternative account based on the notion that the civic notions of antiquity continued to dominate political thought in modern times. Against this revisionist view the argument of From Classical to Modern Liberalism is that we need to study America in comparative perspective, and if we do so we shall discover that republicanism in the modern world was distinctively modern, drawing upon ideas of natural rights, consent, and social contract. Rather than a struggle between liberalism and republicanism, we should speak about liberal republicanism. Rather than republicanism versus liberalism, we should address liberalism versus illiberalism, the true issue of our age.

Enlightenment in Scotland and France: Studies in Political Thought provides comparative analysis of the Scottish and French Enlightenments. Studies of the two Enlightenments have previously focused on the transnational, their story one of continuity between Scottish intellectuals and French philosophes and of a mutual commitment to combat fanaticism in all its forms. This book contends that what has been missing, by and large, from the scholarly literature is the comparative analysis that underscores the contrasts as well as the similarities of the Enlightenments in Scotland and France.
This book shows that, although the similarities of “enlightened” political thought in the two countries are substantial, the differences are also remarkable and stand out in culminating relief in the Scottish and French reactions to the American Revolution. Mark Hulliung argues that it was 1776, not 1789, that was the moment when the spokespersons for Enlightenment in Scotland and France parted company.
Enlightenment in Scotland and France: Studies in Political Thought provides comparative analysis of the Scottish and French Enlightenments. Studies of the two Enlightenments have previously focused on the transnational, their story one of continuity between Scottish intellectuals and French philosophes and of a mutual commitment to combat fanaticism in all its forms. This book contends that what has been missing, by and large, from the scholarly literature is the comparative analysis that underscores the contrasts as well as the similarities of the Enlightenments in Scotland and France.
This book shows that, although the similarities of "enlightened" political thought in the two countries are substantial, the differences are also remarkable and stand out in culminating relief in the Scottish and French reactions to the American Revolution. Mark Hulliung argues that it was 1776, not 1789, that was the moment when the spokespersons for Enlightenment in Scotland and France parted company.

Machiavelli has been viewed as the forerunner of the humanists of our day, liberals and socialists, who have discovered that moral ends sometimes require immoral means. Against this interpretation, Mark Hulliung argues that Machiavelli's "humanism," was rooted in classical notions of grandeur and greatness, and that his prime reason for admiring the ancient Roman republic was that it conquered the world. In short, Machiavelli was at his most Machiavellian precisely when he voiced his "civic humanism."Hulliung argues that Machiavelli's embrace of fraud and violence cannot be justified by patriotism or a professed concern with the common good. He indicts Machiavelli's use and abuse of history in the service of his cynical agenda the quest for power. Hulliung sees Machiavelli as a republican imperialist, embracing the heroic pagan virtues and consciously subverting the humanistic tradition of Cicero, and the religious morality of Christianity, with an intentionally skewed interpretation of republican Rome.By inverting the Stoical and Christian elements of the classics, Machiavelli made the humanistic tradition give birth to Machiavellism, its terrible child. Hulliung's thesis is convincing, and his book is a valuable contribution to the debate on Machiavellian thought.

Once upon a time in America, Herbert Hoover accused Franklin D. Roosevelt of usurping the coveted label liberal. Nowadays, Republicans have so successfully stigmatized the word that even Democrats run from it. But in 1955, Louis Hartz offered perhaps the most famous interpretation of American history of the second half of the twentieth century in his book The Liberal Tradition in America, to which students of American political culture have found themselves returning time and again over the last several decades. Hartz argued that America is inherently liberal, since it lacked a feudal heritage, was born middle class, and consequently did not develop either a strong conservative or socialist movement. Liberalisms Lockean outlook was America's one and only political philosophy, he believed. In this new book, eight prominent scholars consider whether Hartz's analysis should be repudiated or updated and whether a study of America as a liberal society is still a rewarding undertaking. Offering their own respective understandings of the significance of The Liberal Tradition in America in the worlds of yesterday and today, they reassess the Hartzian legacy after half a century while also addressing the triumphs, failures, trials, and tribulations of liberalism in America. These eight distinguished scholars offer insights that are often critical of Hartz, representing a plurality of viewpoints that suggest no definitive conclusion as to the status today of his famous book. But although some may judge Hartzs work as misguided, they affirm that his concern for the fate of liberal society is still with us. These stimulating essays will reward all readers who seek a better understanding of both the Hartzian legacy and America's brand of liberalism today. More than just engaging with Hartz, they bring their own views of the American liberal tradition to the fore. Summary reprinted by permission of University Press of Kansas