english urban commons: the past, present and future of green spaces
Written in collaboration with other members of the ‘Wastes and Stray’s team, this monograph offers a novel examination of urban commons. It draws on historical research to understand urban commons today and their place within our society and as a firm base for education initiatives and future public policy guidance on the protection and use of urban commons as invaluable urban green spaces.
republicanism: an introduction
Republicanism is a centuries-old political tradition, yet its precise meaning has long been contested. The term has been used to refer to government in the public interest, to regimes administered by a collective body or an elected president, and even just to systems embodying the values of liberty and civic virtue. But what do we really mean when we talk about republicanism?
This book explores this complex and important topic. Beginning in the ancient world, it traces the history of republican government in theory and practice across the centuries in Europe and North America, concluding with an analysis of republicanism in our contemporary politics. It argues that republicanism is a dynamic political language, each new generation of thinkers building on the ideas of its predecessors and adapting them in response to its own circumstances, concerns, and crises.
This compelling account of the origins, history, and potential future of one of the world’s most enduring political ideas will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in republicanism, from historians and political theorists to politicians and ordinary citizens.
James Harrington: An Intellectual Biography
Despite not being an active participant in the English Civil War, the seventeenth-century political thinker James Harrington exercised an important influence on the ideas and politics of that crucial period of history. In The Commonwealth of Oceana he sought to explain why civil war had broken out in 1642, to put the case for a commonwealth, and to offer a detailed constitutional blueprint for a new and successful English government. This intellectual biography of Harrington sets a fresh analysis of Oceana and Harrington’s other writings against the background of his life and the turbulent period in which he lived.
In doing so, this study seeks to move beyond the conventional view of Harrington as primarily a republican thinker, offering a broader and more comprehensive account of him which addresses the complexity of his republicanism as well as exploring his contributions to economic, historical, religious, philosophical and scientific debates; his experimentation with vocabulary and literary form; and the relationship between his life and thought. Harrington is presented as an innovative political thinker, committed to democracy and to social mobility, and meritocracy. Ultimately, this broader examination of Harrington’s life and work opens a window on political, economic, religious, and scientific issues which serve to complicate understandings of the English Revolution, and sheds fresh light on the relevance of seventeenth-century ideas to the modern world.
french revolutionaries and english republicans: the Cordeliers Club, 1790-1794
Political clubs were an important driving force in the French Revolution. Alongside the well-known Jacobin and Girondin Clubs, the Cordeliers Club was one of the most significant during the early years of the Revolution and included among its membership leading figures such as Camille Desmoulins and Jean-Paul Marat. French Revolutionaries and English Republicans explores the ideological outlook of the Club and the ideas of its members, who were quick to embrace the novel notion of 'democracy' and advocated policies that would increase the political participation of ordinary people. In developing these ideas the Cordeliers drew heavily on the works of English republican authors of the mid-seventeenth century, such as James Harrington and Marchamont Nedham. Leading Club members translated the works of these authors, but also adapted them so as to make them even more democratic than originally intended. They even produced a draft constitution that was heavily based on Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana, which they submitted to the French government in the autumn of 1792. This book serves as an important counterweight to the common idea that the French Revolution was solely a product of French ideas, such as those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
THE ENGLISH REPUBLICAN TRADITION AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE: BETWEEN THE ANCIENTS AND THE MODERNS
The French have a reputation for being the revolutionary nation. Their 'great' Revolution of 1789 is often seen as a model for all later revolutionary moments and they experienced further revolutionary upheaval during the nineteenth century (1830, 1848, 1871) not to mention the central role the French played in the student movements of 1968. Yet, as this book demonstrates, despite their claims to be starting afresh, the French revolutionaries of the 1790s were very conscious of earlier models that might act as a guide in their own time of revolution, and, of particular interest and importance to them were the events of mid-seventeenth-century England. Not only were the French revolutionaries the first to describe those events as a revolution, but they also compared the execution of Charles I with that of Louis XVI and translated English political tracts from that period that they felt might shine light on their own experiences. The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century France explores this neglected aspect of European history by looking at how English republican ideas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were interpreted and used by eighteenth-century French thinkers, writers and political activists.
revolutionary moments: reading revolutionary texts
This collection of essays explores the concept of revolution and its development since the seventeenth century. Each chapter focuses on a short extract from a revolutionary text. These texts might be a constitutional document, manifesto, or a more theoretical work, but in each case the extract is used as a springboard to exploring the author's understanding of the particular revolution about which he/she was writing and of the developing concept of revolution more generally. The reader can therefore make connections and comparisons across the different revolutionary texts and moments, thereby providing a broader, deeper and more nuanced understanding of revolutions.
MAJOR ARTICLES/BOOK CHAPTERS
‘Presbyterians, Republicans, and Democracy in Church and State, c.1570-1660’, in Democracy and Anti-democracy in Early Modern England 1603-1689, ed. Cesare Cuttica and Markku Peltonen (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 174-193.
'James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana and a Revolution in the Language of Politics', in Rachel Hammersley (ed.), Revolutionary Moments: Reading Revolutionary Texts (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), pp. 19-26.
'Concepts of Citizenship in France during the long eighteenth century', European Review of History - Revue européenne d'histoire, 22:3 (2015), pp. 468-485.
'Spence's Property in Land Every One's Right: Problems and Solutions', in Thomas Spence: The Poor Man's Revolutionary, ed. Alastair Bonnett and Keith Armstrong (London: Breviary Stuff, 2014).
'The Harringtonian Legacy in Britain and France', in Gaby Mahlberg and Dirk Wiemann (eds), European Contexts for English Republicanism (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013)
'La France contre l'Angleterre, tout contre, ou lire les texts des républicains anglais au temps du Directoire', in Républiques soeurs - Le Directoire et la Révolution atlantique, ed. Pierre Serna (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009).
'Jean-Paul Marat's The Chains of Slavery in Britain and France, 1774-1833', The Historical Journal, 48:3 (2005), pp. 641-660.
'English Republicanism in Revolutionary France: The Case of the Cordeliers Club', Journal of British Studies, 43 (2004), pp. 464-481.
'Camille Desmoulins's Le Vieux Cordelier: A Link Between English and French Republicanism', History of European Ideas, 27 (2001), pp. 115-132.