Politics of Liberty: Essays on Montesquieu brings together a series of essays that shine new light on the meaning, conditions, and effects of freedom. Montesquieu’s work embodies in a wholehearted way the liberal commitment to protection of all people from arbitrary power, and it offers specific recommendations for how to establish this protection. Yet his politics of liberty is a highly variegated phenomenon, meaning politics in the plural – not one form of political order or singular system, but many. And while freedom is the end or purpose of the politics of liberty, Montesquieu’s understanding of freedom is more nuanced than that of many other liberals, allowing for a richer moral psychology, a deeper sociality, and deeper respect for cultural diversity than one might expect. In all these ways, Montesquieu’s work challenges the conviction, present in much of democratic theory today, that liberalism is a thing of the past, and should be left there. Politics of Liberty returns us to Montesquieu’s mindful liberalism for the purpose of showing liberalism’s past in a new light, illuminating its value in the present, and making a case for its future.
