Bates's own position is supremely original and perfectly and clearly articulated. He shows that the political does not have to lead to fascism and violence and exclusion (clearly it has not prevented these things from taking place) but can have a more progressive, individualist, and anti-exclusionary form.
James Martel, San Francisco State University In this breakthrough rereading of early-modern ... Read morethought, David William Bates discovers the origins of liberal norms in and through the creation of a fully autonomous political domain. As Bates shows, it was no accident that construction of internal constitutionalist restraints on the state occurred just as the modern state emerged to its full external potential for global violence. Bates's argument is at the cutting edge in the history of political thought, and his interpretations of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau renovate the study of each author.
Samuel Moyn, Columbia University [A] masterful study.
David Tkach The Review of Politics Show Less