Key Thinkers of the English, Scottish and American Enlightenments From Locke to Madison

This book summarizes and explains the way in which political thinkers in England, Scotland, and North America reshaped Western thinking about government and citizens.  Although the ideas of the Anglo-American Enlightenment can be traced back, in embryo, to the Italian Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, it was responses to wars – the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) and the English Civil War (1642-1651) which were fought above all over religion – that defined it. Algernon Sidney demanded an end to royal absolutism. John Locke called for a government based on religious toleration. Benedictus de Spinoza, Samuel von Pufendorf and others elaborated on the ideas that society was composed of sovereign individuals endowed with reason and rights. Building on the works of these thinkers, Scottish philosophers including David Hume and Adam Smith, and American revolutionaries including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison advanced arguments defending human reason, individual freedom, including religious freedom, and democracy.

Introduction:  The Seeds of Enlightenment.- The English Enlightenment:  Algernon Sidney & John Locke.- The Scottish Enlightenment:  Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, & Adam Smith.-  The American Enlightenment:  Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, & James Madison.- Mary Wollstonecraft.- The Meaning of the Anglo-American Enlightenment.

Sabrina P. Ramet is a Professor Emerita at the Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU). She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science at UCLA in 1981. She is the author of 16 scholarly monographs, including Alternatives to Democracy in Twentieth-Century Europe: Collectivist Visions of Modernity (Central European University Press, 2019) and East Central Europe and Communism: Politics, Culture, and Society, 1943-1991 (Routledge, 2023), and co-author (with Lavinia Stan) of East Central Europe since 1989: Politics, Culture, and Society (Routledge, in production). She is also the editor or co-editor of 40 books, including Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Her previous work in political philosophy includes articles on Martin Heidegger (in Religion Compass, Vol. 6, no. 9, 2012), Jean Bodin (in Politics and Religion / Politikologija religije, Vol. XIII, Issue 1, 2019), and Benedictus de Spinoza (in Teorija in praksa, Vol. 60, no. 2, 2023). She and Torbjørn Knutsen are co-authors of German Moral and Political Philosophy, 1785-1908: A concise introduction (New Academia Publishing, 2023).

Torbjørn L. Knutsen is a Professor Emeritus at the Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU) and at the Norwegian Air Force Academy. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Denver in 1986. His books include A History of International Relations Theory, 3rd ed. (University of Manchester Press, 2016), Norsk utenrikspolitisk idéhistorie 1890-1940, co-authored with Halvard Leira and Iver B. Neumann (Universitetsforlaget, 2016), Ways of Knowing: Competing Methodologies in Social and Political Research, 3rd ed., co-authored with Jonathon W. Moses (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Tenke og skrive i samfunnsvitenskapene, co-authored with Tormod Heier

(Fagbokforlaget, 2021), German Moral and Political Philosophy, 1785-1908: A concise introduction, co-authored with Sabrina P. Ramet (New Academia Publishing, 2023), and The Rise and Fall of Terrorism (Universitetsforlaget, 2024). His previous work in political philosophy includes an article on Jean-Jacques Rousseau (in Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 31, no. 3, 1994) and a chapter on Niccolò Machiavelli (in Politisk filosofi: Fra Platon til Hannah Arendt (Pax Forlag, 2013).