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Arguably no political principle has been more central than the separation of powers to the evolution of constitutional governance in Western democracies. M. J. C. Vile traces the history of the doctrine from its rise during the English Civil War, through its development in the eighteenth century -…

The great Italian poet turns his hand to political thought and defends the reign of a single monarch ruling over a universal empire. He believed that peace was only achievable when a single monarch replaced divisive and squabbling princes and kings. However, he also believed in a separation of…

Liberty, Order, and Justice seeks to familiarize students with the basic principles of the Constitution, and to explain their origin, meaning, and purpose. Particular emphasis is placed on federalism and the separation of powers. These features of the book, together with its extensive and unique…

This is volume 2 from the Complete Works. The Spirit of Laws is Montesquieu’s best known work in which he reflects on the influence of climate on society, the separation of political powers, and the need for checks on a powerful executive office.

This is volume 1 from the Complete Works. The Spirit of Laws is Montesquieu’s best known work in which he reflects on the influence of climate on society, the separation of political powers, and the need for checks on a powerful executive office.

In Defense of the Constitution refutes modern critics of the Constitution who assail it as “reactionary” or “undemocratic.” The author argues that modern disciples of Progressivism are determined to centralize political control in Washington, D.C., to achieve their goal of an egalitarian national…

This collection examines themes and ideologies central to the formation of the United States including Edmund Burke’s theories on property rights and government, the influence of Jamaica on the American colonies, the relations between religious and legal understandings of the concept of liberty,…

Vol. XII (The Federalist No. XLVI to LXXXV, The Federal Constitution and Amendments) of a twelve volume collection of the works of Alexander Hamilton who served at a formative period of the American Republic. His papers and letters are important for understanding this period as he served as…

The Federalist, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, constitutes a text central to the American political tradition. Published in newspapers in 1787 and 1788 to explain and promote ratification of the proposed Constitution for the United States, which up to then were bound by the…

It is the thesis of this monumentally argued book that the United States Supreme Court - largely through abuses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution has embarked on “a continuing revision of the Constitution, under the guise of interpretation.”

Guizot presented the lectures upon which this book is based in 1828 at the Sorbonne where he was professor of history. He provides a survey of European history and culture from its beginnings until the French Revolution. He wants to show what is unique to European “civilisation”, such as feudalism,…

Roscoe Pound, former dean of Harvard Law School, delivered a series of lectures at the University of Calcutta in 1948. In these lectures, he criticized virtually every modern mode of interpreting the law because he believed the administration of justice had lost its grounding and recourse to…

This volume is a collection of Leggett’s editorials and newspaper articles written during the 1830s in Jacksonian America. He is a consistent advocate of laissez-faire economic policy and limited government.

Vol. 3 of Clausewitz’s magnum opus in which he ponders the revolution in military affairs made possible by the “nation at arms” during the French Revolution. He did not live to see the book appear in print but its influence was profound in Prussia and then in the unified German nation state during…

Plucknett’s work provides a common-law understanding of individual rights, not in theory only, but protected through the confusing and messy evolution of courts, and their administration as they struggled to resolve real problems. The first half of the book is a historical introduction to the study…

Liberty Fund’s edition of Dicey’s most famous work on English constitutional law in which he defended the idea of the sovereignty of parliament under an independent judiciary and the rule of law.

Originally published in German in 1936, The Natural Law is the first work to clarify the differences between traditional natural law as represented in the writings of Cicero, Aquinas, and Hooker and the revolutionary doctrines of natural rights espoused by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.

Part of a larger but incomplete magnum opus in which Bacon demonstrates the use of the scientific method to discover knowledge about the natural world. Many of the examples in this volume concern the nature of heat and energy.

A pioneering work of the Scottish Enlightenment in the field of “philosophical history”, or what we would today call sociology. It deals with the social, political, economic, intellectual, and legal changes which accompanied societies as they made the transition to modern commercial and…

This is vol. 3 of the third revised edition of Herbert Spencer’s magnum opus on sociology which was first published in 1876. Here, he discusses ecclesiastical institutions, professional institutions, and “industrial” (or economic) institutions.