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thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
The Cambridge School
@thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
8.9K followers 680 following 90 posts
Political Thought and Intellectual History. Posting from the Cambridge Centre for Political Thought. https://www.polthought.cam.ac.uk
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thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
Tom Arnold-Foster (Oxford) replies to Anton Jäger (also Oxford) on the political theory of the American Populists at the #MondaySeminar #Neo-RomanCounter-Revisionism
Tom Arnold-Foster on the right telling us all what to think about Anton Jäger on the left.
November 17, 2025 at 5:34 PM
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On Smith and Montesquieu and that sleeping Sentinel (with a touch of Machiavelli)
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Smith and Montesquieu and that sleeping Sentinel (with a touch of Machiavelli)
In chapter 13 of his (1734) Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, Montesquieu notes that Roman military imperial decline is, in part, caused by a change of und...
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:10 AM
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stuartelden.bsky.social
Foucault's Multiple Plans for his History of Sexuality progressivegeographies.com/2025/11/16/f... - building on earlier work, and discussing a couple of other bits of evidence about the changing nature of Foucault's plans for this series from the mid-1970s until his 1984 death
Foucault’s Multiple Plans for his History of Sexuality
Some years ago, Philippe Chevallier alerted me to the importance of the 1977 German translation of the first volume of Foucault’s History of Sexuality as Sexualität und Wahrheit: Der Wille zum Wiss…
progressivegeographies.com
November 16, 2025 at 8:42 AM
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uniofexeternews.bsky.social
Congratulations to Dr Marc Palen @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social, following the award of the Elise M. Boulding Prize in Peace History to his book, Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World (Princeton University Press, 2024).

peacehistorysociety.org/phs2025/awards.php
Peace History Society
peacehistorysociety.org
November 13, 2025 at 11:37 AM
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camilavergara.bsky.social
Join us next Friday 21 for a roundtable on John McCormick's excellent new book The People's Princes at King's College London w/ comments by David Wootton (York), Lawrence Hamilton (Cambridge) & myself. There will be wine & great conversation on leadership & politics
Register here
👇
shorturl.at/XmAsZ
November 14, 2025 at 1:28 PM
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lsegovernment.bsky.social
Congratulations to @brunoleipold.com, whose book #Citizen #Marx has been awarded the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize which is given "for a book which exemplifies the best and most innovative new writing in or about the Marxist tradition".

www.deutscherprize.org.uk/wp/
The Deutscher Memorial Prize
www.deutscherprize.org.uk
November 14, 2025 at 10:32 AM
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On Montesquieu and the enemies of truth.
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Montesquieu and the enemies of truth.
During the last 24hrs my review of Philosophical Mechanics in the Age of Reason by Katherine Brading and Marius Stan (Oxford University Press, 2024) appeared at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (here)...
open.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 9:25 PM
thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
Deme Kasimis responds to Paul Sagar's paper, "The Macedonianism of Fear: Aristotle vs Rawls" here at the #MondaySeminar.
Paul Sagar (KCL) and Demetra Kasimis (Cambridge) discuss Aristotle at the #MondaySeminar.
November 10, 2025 at 5:27 PM
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global-ih.bsky.social
Now online! Laura André Lombard (Université Panthéon Assas) reviews "The Political Thought of Anacharsis Cloots: A Proponent of Cosmopolitan Republicanism in the French Revolution (@degruyterbrill.bsky.social, 2023) by @fepoulsen.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The cover of the book, featuring a historic portrait of Cloots
November 10, 2025 at 9:47 AM
thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
Nathaniel Boyd (York) introduces his paper on "Hegel & German public law" as his commentator, Chris Meckstroth, makes notes. #MondaySeminar
Nathaniel Boyd (York) introduces his paper on "Hegel & German public law" as his commentator, Chris Meckstroth, makes notes. #MondaySeminar
November 3, 2025 at 5:12 PM
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stuartelden.bsky.social
A request - does anyone have access to the original 1977 German translation of Foucault's History of Sexuality Vol 1 - Der Wille zum Wissen, Sexualität und Wahrheit? I'd really appreciate a copy of the Vorwort zur deutschen Ausgabe. It has to be the 1st edition (and not the various translations).
November 2, 2025 at 10:27 AM
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On Our Post-Constitutional Moment, PT 5; Some Wilson; some Ostrom, and the Threat of Despotism
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Our Post-Constitutional Moment, PT 5; Some Wilson; some Ostrom, and the Threat of Despotism
This is probably the final blog post of the week because I’ll in Houston for a talk:
open.substack.com
October 29, 2025 at 6:34 PM
thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
Hugo Drochon *so* enjoyed speaking at the #MondaySeminar on, um, Monday that he has joined BlueSky and everything: @hdrochon.bsky.social.
October 30, 2025 at 2:47 PM
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On Lippmann and Oakeshott on the art of governing well; with some Bergson and Foucault thrown in
Shout out to @jcherniss.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Lippmann and Oakeshott on the art of governing well; with some Bergson and Foucault thrown in
Walter Lippmann’s final major book is The Public Philosophy (which was originally published in 1955 as Essays in the Public Philosophy. My page numbers and chapter numbers are to the Transactions edit...
open.substack.com
October 28, 2025 at 7:12 PM
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davidecadeddu.bsky.social
At the University of Milan, lecture series on the “Annales school”, from November 2025 to March 2026, with great speakers such as Müller, Rubin, Calafat, Burke and Abulafia! @thecambridgeschool.bsky.social @camhistory.bsky.social @qmul.bsky.social @cnrs.fr @historysorbonne.bsky.social
October 28, 2025 at 6:53 PM
thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
Neapolitans!
A poster advertising Fernanda Gallo's talk in Naples on Wednesday morning.
October 28, 2025 at 1:57 PM
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uncanonical.bsky.social
A happy change: my article on Rousseau’s three general wills is now open access at the Review of Politics. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
October 28, 2025 at 11:14 AM
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Lippmann, Rawls, Locke and the Social Contract as Public Philosophy
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Lippmann, Rawls, Locke and the Social Contract as Public Philosophy
Today’s post brings together two recurring themes in my digressions: first, my denial that John Locke should be conceptualized as a liberal (now a joint project with John Trasher at OSU); second, my g...
open.substack.com
October 27, 2025 at 5:12 PM
thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
A characteristic hand gesture from Hugo Drochon, as he starts to explain what it is that he is up to.
Hugo Drochon (Nottingham) addresses the Political Thought and Intellectual History seminar at Cambridge, and makes a characteristic hand gesture.
October 27, 2025 at 5:11 PM
thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
Today's #MondaySeminar will host Hugo Drochon (Nottingham) talking about "Gaetano Mosca & the Ruling Class", with commentary from Richard Bourke.

Bateman Auditorium, Gonville & Caius, 5pm.

Be there, or be somewhere else.
October 27, 2025 at 10:16 AM
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tomaashby.bsky.social
What happens when the philosophy of love meets a neo-Roman sense of liberty as independence? Are lovers doomed to be "made Slaves to Venus"? Read my essay on érōs as an enslaving and emancipatory power in the first close analysis of Algernon Sidney's "Of Love": classiques-garnier.com/le-republica...
A quotation from the text: What is a ‘free Liberty’ and, by implication, an ‘unfree Liberty’? As we have seen, Sidney describes érōs as ‘an intensive Desire of the Soul to enjoy Beauty’, which is naturally good, and ‘the Desire of a Lover is to be loved’, which is the mutually passionate, fruition of beauty103. Notably, within this ‘Union of Hearts’, Sidney states how the rational soul ‘finds rest within itself104’. It stands to reason, therefore, that the requitement of love is emancipatory. In loving the lover, the beloved frees the lover, who is no longer possessed by love as the desire to be loved. In fact, to the contrary, the lover now possesses love and is free to enjoy it. Accordingly, what is for the lover implied as ‘unfree Liberty’—a contradiction that results in slavery—is, in fact, the disorderliness of ‘the rejected Lover’s Torment105’. Unlike those subjected to unanswered érōs, the requited lover enjoys ‘a free Liberty’ to a mutually empowering good, ‘Lovers Happiness’, which is the ‘most absolute Happiness106’ available to fallen humans within the postlapsarian darkness of the saeculum. Fundamentally, therefore, the requited lover has no such domina in Venus—providing reciprocity continues. It is worth reflecting at this juncture how the older Sidney notably and repeatedly described freedom as the ‘height of temporal felicity107’, which only serves to indicate further the affinities between the earthly status of the liber homo and the lover who experiences love returne. Detail from the 1901 painting La Belle Dame Sans Merci
October 23, 2025 at 6:34 AM
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jonesemily.bsky.social
😍😍😍
Front cover of book about Disraeli
October 23, 2025 at 3:43 PM
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tomaashby.bsky.social
Today I worked with Adam Smith's copy of Hobbes's "Leviathan" (1651)
The title page The first page of "Of Man" with extensive marginalia
October 22, 2025 at 8:18 AM
thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
A great start to our Michaelmas programme for the Monday seminar in Political Thought and Intellectual History.

Duncan Kelly provided a synopsis of his current work in progress, followed by commentary from Fernanda Gallo

For details of our term card, see: www.polthought.cam.ac.uk/seminar/mich...
October 15, 2025 at 11:37 AM
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cathfletcher.bsky.social
Just began typing Noel Malcolm into the browser and it predicted I might want Noel Edmonds and imagine the confusion that could ensue...
October 14, 2025 at 3:32 PM