Quentin Skinner lecture

Given by William Selinger, Quentin Skinner Fellow

This lecture will focus on Montesquieu’s first major work, Persian Letters (1721), which is about the relationship between love and despotism. In it, Montesquieu suggests that despotism is incompatible with love, and that a monarchy grounded on the mutual love of subject and sovereign will break down into sheer Machiavellianism. Montesquieu also shows how the drive to purify love and desire is inherently despotic. In making these arguments, Montesquieu criticized not only prominent justifications of absolute monarchy in seventeenth-century France but also the political-theological ideas of the foremost French critic of absolute monarchy, François Fénelon. Persia served as Montesquieu’s backdrop because of parallels between Persian and French political structures as well as between ideas about pure love in Catholicism and Islam.

The full programme is available at: https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/42071/#programme

Registration fee includes refreshments, lunch, and drinks reception.

Please email [email protected] if you have any questions about this event.