This major work of academic reference provides a comprehensive overview of the development of

Western political thought during the European Enlightenment. Written by a distinguished team

of international contributors, this Cambridge History is the latest in a sequence of volumes that

is now firmly established as the principal reference source for the history of political thought.

Every major theme in eighteenth-century political thought is covered in a series of essays at once

scholarly and accessible, and the essays are complemented by extensive guides for further reading,

and brief biographical notices of the major characters featured in the text, including Rousseau,

Montesquieu, Kant, and Edmund Burke. Of interest and relevance to students and scholars of

politics and history at all levels from beginning undergraduate upwards, this volume chronicles

one of the most exciting and rewarding of all periods in the development of Western thinking

about politics.

mark goldie is a Senior University Lecturer in History and a Fellow of Churchill College,

Cambridge.

robert wokler is Senior Lecturer in Political Science and in the Special Program in the

Humanities, Yale University.