Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise The Prince, written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. He has often been called the father of modern political philosophy and political science.
A republic, based on the Latin phrase res publica, is a state in which political power rests with the public through their representatives—in contrast to a monarchy.
Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law, and others. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self-governance and ranges from the rule of a representative minority or aristocracy to popular sovereignty. It has had different definitions and interpretations which vary significantly based on historical context and methodological approach.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, sometimes shortened to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. The six volumes cover, from 98 to 1590, the peak of the Roman Empire, the history of early Christianity and its emergence as the Roman state religion, the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the rise of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane and the fall of Byzantium, as well as discussions on the ruins of Ancient Rome.
James Harrington was an English political theorist of classical republicanism. He is best known for his controversial publication The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656). This work was an exposition of an ideal constitution, a utopia, designed to facilitate the development of the English republic established after the regicide, the execution of Charles I in 1649.
The American Enlightenment was a period of intellectual and philosophical fervor in the thirteen American colonies in the 18th to 19th century, which led to the American Revolution and the creation of the United States. The American Enlightenment was influenced by the 17th- and 18th-century Age of Enlightenment in Europe and distinctive American philosophy. According to James MacGregor Burns, the spirit of the American Enlightenment was to give Enlightenment ideals a practical, useful form in the life of the nation and it’s people.
Classical republicanism, also known as civic republicanism or civic humanism, is a form of republicanism developed in the Renaissance inspired by the governmental forms and writings of classical antiquity, especially such classical writers as Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero. Classical republicanism is built around concepts such as liberty as non-domination, self-government, rule of law, property-based personality, anti-corruption, abolition of monarchy, civics, civil society, common good, civic virtue, popular sovereignty, patriotism and mixed government.
The values and ideals of republicanism are foundational in the constitution and history of the United States. As the United States constitution prohibits granting titles of nobility, republicanism in this context does not refer to a political movement to abolish such a social class, as it does in countries such as the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands. Instead, it refers to the core values that citizenry in a republic have, or ought to have.
Machiavellianism is widely defined as the political philosophy of the Italian Renaissance diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli, usually associated with realism in foreign and domestic politics, and with the view that those who lead governments must prioritize the stability of the regime over ethical concerns. There is no scholarly consensus as to the precise nature of Machiavelli's philosophy, or what his intentions were with his works. The word Machiavellianism first appeared in the English language in 1607, due to Machiavelli's popularity, often as a byword for unsavory government politics.
The Commonwealth men, Commonwealthmen, Commonwealth's men, or Commonwealth Party were highly outspoken British Protestant religious, political, and economic reformers during the early 18th century. They were active in the movement called the Country Party. They promoted republicanism and had a great influence on Republicanism in the United States, but little impact in Britain.
John Greville Agard Pocock was a New Zealand historian of political thought. He was especially known for his studies of republicanism in the early modern period, his work on the history of English common law, his treatment of Edward Gibbon and other Enlightenment historians, and, in historical method, for his contributions to the history of political discourse.
The Commonwealth of Oceana, published 1656, is a work of political philosophy by the English politician and essayist James Harrington (1611–1677). The unsuccessful first attempt to publish Oceana was officially censored by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658). It was eventually published, with a dedication to Cromwell.
Arihiro Hoeber Fukuda was a Japanese historian who was an associate professor at the University of Tokyo Faculty of Law and specialised in the history of Western political thought, particularly the republican the ideas of James Harrington, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, and Niccolò Machiavelli.
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is a 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning book of history by Bernard Bailyn. It is considered one of the most influential studies of the American Revolution published during the 20th century.
Country Party was the name employed in the Kingdom of England by political movements which campaigned in opposition to the Court Party.
In intellectual history and the history of political thought, the Cambridge School is a loose historiographical movement traditionally associated with the University of Cambridge, where many of those associated with the school held or continue to hold academic positions, including Quentin Skinner, J. G. A. Pocock, Peter Laslett, John Dunn, James Tully, David Runciman, and Raymond Geuss.
A revolutionary republic is a form of government whose main tenets are popular sovereignty, rule of law, and representative democracy. It is based in part on the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers, and was favored by revolutionaries during the Age of Revolution. A revolutionary republic tends to arise from the formation of a provisional government after the overthrow of an existing state and political regime. It often takes the form of a revolutionary state, which ostensibly represents the will of its constituents.
The Unfinished Revolution: Education and Politics in the Thought of Thomas Jefferson is a biography of American Founding Father and third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, written by scholar and professor, Harold Hellenbrand. As indicated by the subtitle, the book focuses on Jefferson's philosophy on the importance of education in America, as a means of improving the state of the republic, post-Revolutionary War. The Unfinished Revolution was released February 1, 1990, through the University of Delaware Press.
Donald Clark Hodges was a philosophy professor at Florida State University and a Marxist social scientist, who wrote about revolutions and revolutionaries.
Crises of the Republic is an anthology of four essays by Hannah Arendt, dealing with contemporary American politics and the crises it faced in the 1960s and 1970s, published in 1972.
