Book Review: 'Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism' edited by Hannah Dawson and Annelien de Dijn, Cambridge University Press, 2022, 298 pages. ISBN: 9781108844567

Abstract

After 'Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought' (Hamilton-Bleakley, Brett & Tully 2007), another of Quentin Skinner’s influential books 'Liberty before Liberalism' (Skinner 1998) received its own ‘rethinking’ in the volume 'Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism'. This is an excellent way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original work that was first delivered as Skinner’s Inaugural Lecture as Regius Professor of History at Cambridge at the end of 1997. As someone who has had 'Liberty before Liberalism' on my syllabus for a few years now, I cannot but welcome a new publication aimed at rethinking Skinner’s book. After all, political science students I taught could not contain the temptation to ask what happened next, if anything, in the great story of freedom and what we ought to do with the discovery. For many of them living in a Russian authoritarian context the only feasible political alternative was classical liberalism, if not libertarianism. Learning about the idea of freedom as the absence of dependency was thus an eye-opening experience. The new volume has a lot to offer to those who developed a thirst for an intellectual sequel after reading the original work.

Keywords

• neo-roman liberty
• slavery
• domination
• participation
• scope of republicanism