Reviews for Algernon Sidney and the Republican heritage in England and America

The average rating for Algernon Sidney and the Republican heritage in England and America based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-12-31 00:00:00 Tony Arellano Houston's extraordinarily readable text reviews the life of an important 17th century English political theorist as well as the life of his ideas in English and American politics. Short of being a full biography, Houston's book nevertheless begins by attempting to assimilate Sidney's thought to what is known of his life. The details for many years remain relatively sketchy, but Houston is able to discern certain tendencies that reaffirm themselves in Sidney's key writings: Court Maxims and Discourses Concerning Government. From there, Houston works to chart the sometimes maddeningly vague and at other times surprisingly subtle elements of Sidney's political views. In so doing, Houston often aligns himself with latter-day critics of the so-called 'republican revisionism'. Houston also teases out Sidney's influence in colonial American writers before, during and after the revolution. He rightly notes the difficulties of such an enterprise and is careful to indicate where he is speculating on the basis of slender evidence. The arguments for the most part are convincing, though there were at least two repeated claims that didn't quite jell for this reader. One had to do with the insistence of the relative unimportance of Machiavelli's ideas (particularly the Discourses) for Sidney. On the basis of Houston's own citations of Sidney, it seems that this claim could at least be questioned. Secondly, Houston is at pains to reject any lingering hint of neo-Platonism in Sidney's views of self-denial and virtue; this claim again seems belied by the rich resonance of many quotations from Sidney that Houston brings to bear in different contexts. Despite these cavils, Houston's book seems an essential introduction to the life and thought of Sidney, and an especially valuable model for anyone interested in thinking through the filiations of political ideas over time.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-06-10 00:00:00 Carmelo Spitale Not for beginner but nice book go to arrow pushing book of willey and sons publisher for beginner