Visions of Politics : Volume 3:Hobbes and civil science.

2006 Balzan Prizewinner. Firenze, Olschki Ed. 2016, cm 17 x 24, 78 pp. con 4 tavv. f.t. a colori, brossura The Annual Balzan Lecture,7. Testo in Inglese. Contemporary political theorists frequently say that there is only one coherent way of thinking about liberty, and that it consists in recognising that an individual is free so long as there is no interference with the exercise of his or her powers. In Thinking About Liberty: An Historian’s Approach, Quentin Skinner shows that this is mere dogma by tracing a genealogy that considers different ways of thinking about liberty, a central concept in social and political thought in today’s Western democracies. He isolates three distinct strands in the genealogy of modern liberty, including the above mentioned freedom as absence of interference (by external agencies or by the self), as well as two alternatives: freedom as absence of dependence (as in liber homo vs slave status) and freedom as self-realisation. In speaking as an historian, Skinner’s chief concern is to excavate a way of thinking about freedom that has lately been in danger of getting lost. The lecture also presents Skinner’s 2006 Balzan Prize research project, which involved young European scholars to address questions about the place of civil, religious and political liberty in the formation of modern Europe.

Cambridge University Press 2008, cm.14x22, pp.XXI,245, brossura con copertina figurata a colori. Quentin Skinner is one of the foremost historians in the world, and in Hobbes and Republican Liberty he offers a dazzling comparison of two rival theories about the nature of human liberty. The first originated in classical antiquity, and lay at the heart of the Roman republican tradition of public life. Thomas Hobbes was the most formidable enemy of this pattern of thought, and his successive attempts to discredit it constitute a truly epochal moment in the history of Anglophone political thought. Hobbes and Republican Liberty develops several of the themes announced by Quentin Skinner in his celebrated inaugural lecture on Liberty before Liberalism of 1997. Cogent, engaged, accessible, and indeed exhilarating, this new book will appeal to readers of history, politics, and philosophy at all levels from upper-undergraduate upwards, and provides an excellent introduction to the work of one of the most celebrated thinkers of our time.

Cambridge (U.K.), Cambridge University Press 1994, cm.13,2x21,5, pp.VIII,215,(1), brossura, copertina fig. a colori.

Cambridge University Press 2006, cm.15x23, pp.XVI,210, brossura con copertina figurata. The first of three volumes of essays by Quentin Skinner, one of the world's leading intellectual historians. This collection includes some of his most important philosophical and methodological statements written over the past four decades, each carefully revised for publication in this form. In a series of seminal essays Professor Skinner sets forth the intellectual principles that inform his work. Writing as a practising historian, he considers the theoretical difficulties inherent in the pursuit of knowledge and interpretation, and elucidates the methodology which finds its expression in his two successive volumes. All of Professor Skinner's work is characterised by philosophical power, limpid clarity, and elegance of exposition; these essays, many of which are now recognised classics, provide a fascinating and convenient digest of the development of his thought.

Matera, Galleria Studio 1970, cm.21,5x25, pp.44, 118 tavv.bn.ft. legatura ed.sopracop.fig.bn.