Freedom and the Construction of Europe

Quentin Skinner, Martin van Gelderen

Cambridge University Press, Mar 7, 2013 - History - 425 pages

Freedom, today perceived simply as a human right, was a continually contested idea in the early modern period. In Freedom and the Construction of Europe an international group of scholars explore the richness, diversity and complexity of thinking about freedom in the shaping of modernity. Volume 1 examines debates about religious and constitutional liberties, as well as exploring the tensions between free will and divine omnipotence across a continent of proliferating religious denominations. Volume 2 considers free persons and free states, examining differing views about freedom of thought and action and their relations to conceptions of citizenship. Debates about freedom have been fundamental to the construction of modern Europe, but represent a part of our intellectual heritage that is rarely examined in depth. These volumes provide materials for thinking in fresh ways not merely about the concept of freedom, but how it has come to be understood in our own time.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Freedom and apocalyptic thinking in early modern Lutheranism 1: 11
• the case ofMary: 12
• Calvinist debates on freedom: 21
• ANNAB EL BRETT: 27
• Libertas ecclesiae in posttridentine debates on church and state: 38
• FELIcITY GREEN: 46
• Ecclesiastical independence and the freedom of consent 5 7: 57
• FREYA SIERHUIs: 65
• Freedom virtue and Socinian heterodoxy: 77
• Hebraism and religious freedom: 94
• AVI LIFSCHITZ: 106
• Pufendorfand Locke on the edge of freedom: 121
• Free citizens and the state: 128
• Freedom of conscience political liberty and the foundations: 134
• The liberty of Italian citystates: 157
• Free and unfree states in Machiavellis political philosophy: 176
• Discourses on liberty in early modern Ragusa: 195
• Liberty and liberties in early modern PolandLithuania: 215
• Liberty and liberties in Europes federal republics: 235
• Freedom and the limits of Europe: 247
• Roman laW German liberties and the constitution of the Holy: 256
• From European to cosmopolitan freedom: 266
• The language of liberty in early modern Hungarian political debate: 274
• Is political freedom an Islamic value?: 283
• The language ofliberty in Calvinist political thought: 296
• 1 7: 336
• Index zlfnames: 390
• Index zlfsuhjerts: 400

About the author

Quentin Skinner is Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities, Department of History, Queen Mary, University of London. Martin van Gelderen held the Chair of European Intellectual History at the European University from 2003 until 2012 and is now Director of the Lichtenberg Kolleg, Göttingen Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Freedom and the Construction of Europe; Volume 1 of Freedom and the Construction of Europe 2 Volume Hardback Set; Freedom and the Construction of Europe, Martin van Gelderen, ISBN 1107031842, 9781107031845; Volume 1 of Freedom and the Construction of Europe: Religious and Constitutional Liberties, Martin van Gelderen, ISBN 1107031842, 9781107031845
• Editors: Quentin Skinner, Martin van Gelderen
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2013
• ISBN: 1107033063, 9781107033061
• Length: 425 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / General; History / Europe / Renaissance; History / Social History; Political Science / Civil Rights; Political Science / History & Theory; Political Science / Political Freedom; Political Science / Political Ideologies / General; Social Science / Sociology / General