Trousson, Raymond / Vercruysse, Jeroom (dir.), Dictionnaire general de Voltaire. (Champion classiques, references et dictionnaires 18) 1272 p. 2020:10 (Champion, FR) <670-9>
ISBN 978-2-38096-016-7 paper ¥7,064.- (税込) EUR 38.00

Erwin, Sean, Machiavelli and the Problems of Military Force: A War of One's Own. 224 pp. 2022:7 (Bloomsbury Academic, UK) <674-843>
ISBN 978-1-350-11571-2 hard ¥25,641.- (税込) GB￡ 90.00 *

Central to Niccolo Machiavelli's writing is the argument that a successful state is one that prefers to lose with its own arms (arma propriis) than to win with the arms of others (arma alienis). This book sheds light on Machiavelli's critiques of military force and provides an important reinterpretation of his military theory. Sean Erwin argues that the distinction between arma propriis and arma alienis poses a central problem to Machiavelli's case for why modern political institutions offer modes of political existence that ancient ones did not. Starting from the influence of Lucretius and Aelianus Tacticus on the Dell'arte della guerra, Erwin examines Machiavelli's criticism of mercenary, auxiliary, and mixed forces. Giving due consideration to an overlooked conceptual distinction in Machiavelli studies, this book is a valuable and original contribution to the field.

社会主義の歴史　全2巻
van der Linden, Marcel (ed.), The Cambridge History of Socialism. 2 vols. 1400 pp. 2022:8 (Cambridge U. Pr., UK) <674-845>
ISBN 978-1-108-61133-6 hard ¥56,980.- (税込) GB￡ 200.00 *

Divided into two volumes, The Cambridge History of Socialism offers an up-to-date critical survey of the socialist movements and political practices that have arisen thus far throughout the world. A much-needed corrective of the current state of the study of socialism from a historical perspective, the volumes use a wider geographical and temporal focus to track the changes and trends in global socialisms and to move beyond the European trajectory. Together they cover anarchism, syndicalism, social democracy, labour, the New Left, and alternative socialist movements in the Global South in one encompassing reconstruction. Featuring 55 essays by experts across the field, the volumes will serve as examples of the rich variety of socialist histories and, together, endeavour to reveal the major contours of its development.

Church, Jeffrey, Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life. 336 pp. 2022:7 (Oxford U. Pr., US) <674-62>
ISBN 978-0-19-763318-2 hard ¥20,913.- (税込) US$ 97.00 *

In the wake of populist challenges throughout the past decade in the U.S. and Europe, liberalism has been described as elitist and out of touch, concerned with protecting and promoting material interests with an orientation that is pragmatic, legalistic, and technocratic. Simultaneously, liberal governments have become increasingly detached from the middle class and its moral needs for purpose and belonging. If liberalism cannot provide spiritual sustenance, individuals will look elsewhere for it, especially in illiberal forms of populism. In Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life, Jeffrey Church addresses the "meaning deficit" in contemporary liberal societies. Focusing on Immanuel Kant's largely neglected early lectures on anthropology from the 1760s and 1770s, Church argues that Kant's work can serve as a basis for a more meaningful liberalism, one that conceives of freedom and equality for all as a moral vocation of citizens and institutions. Church also asserts that Kant's early view of the meaning of life has important implications for understanding his political theory. Kant saw liberal community as something that helps us realize our destiny on earth as the distinctively free creatures we are. Liberalism, then, is not elitist but a participatory project of all members of society. It is not concerned primarily with material things but with our moral destiny. It is not pragmatic but principled. Church holds that Kant's liberalism rests on a view of the meaning of human existence, and so analyzes Kant's view of the meaning of life and its application to his politics. In particular, Church contends that a fundamental concern included in Kant's liberalism, largely unrecognized by scholars, is to foster the meaning of life for citizens of liberal republican orders. At the same time, Church applies Kant's views of the meaning of life to contemporary problems in liberalism. In particular, he argues that Kant's view of a meaningful liberalism can provide a counterweight to the recent rise of illiberal nationalist or religious forms of community that seem attractive to liberal citizens hungering for meaning in a disenchanted world. Compelling and ambitious, Jeffrey Church provides the first extended treatment of Kant's understanding of the meaning of life and a powerful alternative to procedural liberalism.

Jordan, Will R., The Beginning of Liberalism: Reexamining the Political Philosophy of John Locke. (The A. V. Elliott Conference Series) 280 pp. 2022:3 (Mercer U. Pr., US) <674-43>
ISBN 978-0-88146-837-3 paper ¥5,390.- (税込) US$ 25.00 *

The dominant public philosophy of the United States of America has long been some version of liberalism--dedicated to individual liberty, equal rights, religious freedom, government by consent, and established limits on political power. Today, however, we today find ourselves in unusual times, when the major political parties have powerful and growing wings that embrace decidedly illiberal public philosophies. On the Left, critical theory eschews Enlightenment rationalism and liberal ideas of toleration and individual liberty as structures that serve to support inequality and oppression. On the Right, conservative scholars excoriate liberalism for privileging an ideal of individual autonomy that eats away at the civilizing bonds of family, tradition, religion, and country. What seems new here is not the critiques themselves, but the power and popularity of political movements that openly and proudly reject the first principles of America's long-dominant public philosophy. Can the center hold? Can the principles of 1776 survive? Or has liberalism run its course? With these questions in the air, this book proposes to return with fresh eyes to the beginning of liberalism and the political philosophy of John Locke. Instead of looking at Lockean liberalism as a simple and timeworn ideological program, the essays reexamine Locke's project by remaining alive to the complexity and nuance with which he addressed his subject. The Locke that emerges is indeed an ambitious and radical thinker, but one not as imprudent or unmindful of custom as his conservative critics would have it, nor as tolerant of oppression as his progressive critics aver.Contributors include Nasser Behnegar, Steven Forde, Peter Josephson, Rita Koganzon, J. Judd Owen, Gabrielle Stanton Ray, and Scott Yenor.