Scholars and especially commentators in need of a quotation frequently cite Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu to support the idea of a “mixed” constitution with democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical elements. Rarely, though, are Montesquieu’s works, especially The Spirit of Laws, explored at length. Montesquieu is more likely to be plumbed for quotes to diminish current politicians rather than to be read seeking wisdom. Some writers even call him a prophet. Once in a while, however, engaging Montesquieu in this way can produce something thoughtful, like this piece by Harvey Mansfield, but that is rare. What has long been needed is a book-length analysis of Montesquieu, especially in light of “post-liberal” criticism of the American founding as a fatally and ideologically flawed Enlightenment project, rooted in a false, radically individualist anthropology. Like Marxian analysis of the American Founding, these political philosophical arguments have in common an overly theoretical approach as well as an extreme reductionism. Yet they are at their root implicitly historical, for they propose “liberalism” as an ideology, and the American Revolution as an attempt to instantiate in the body politic this ideology that they argue was doomed to fail.
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