Discourses Concerning Government (Liberty Fund Studies in Political Theory) [Paperback]

Algernon Sidney (Author), Thomas G. West (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Liberty Fund Studies in Political Theory | Publication Date: March 1, 1996

Modern Political Philosophy

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About the Author

Algernon Sidney

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 645 pages
• Publisher: Liberty Fund; Revised edition edition (March 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865971420
• ISBN-13: 978-0865971424
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #517,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seminal Work, August 3, 2000

By 

eunomius (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discourses Concerning Government (Hardcover)

Despite its obscurity, this is a profound work of great historical importance to the foundations of the American Revolution as well as the perpetual struggle for liberty and justice. Algernon Sidney(1622-1683) was acclaimed by friends of liberty throughout the eighteenth century for his martyrdom in the stuggle against tyranny and arbitrary government. On December 7, 1683, he was executed by the Crown for the crime of high treason. While a conviction for this crime had long required two witnesses to testify for a defendant's guilt, the government was only able to produce one man, while the other witness was this very book, his great "Discourses," which were used against him because of the fact that they expounded subversive ideas.

Even today, at the dawn of the 21st century, it can quite accurately be said that his ideas are still subversive. Sidney, like his more famous contemporary, John Locke, was a staunch supporter of the natural rights of the individual to life, liberty, and estate(property). This work in particular, like Locke's "First Treatise," was originally undertaken as a refutation of Robert Filmer's "Patriarcha," which represented perhaps the clearest exposition of the theory of rule by "Divine Right." Sidney's work, however, is far more than a simple refutation. He engages in lengthy, erudite discussions of the relationship of liberty and slavery, liberty and power, master and slave, as well as virtue and corruption. Moreover, he presents an especially profound and radical case for the right to resist, oppose, reform, and even overthrow tyrannical government.

Indeed, it was these extreme notions that inspired generations of libertarian radicals throughout the English empire, but most profoundly, in the North American colonies. As the great historian Caroline Robbins made clear, Sidney's "Discourses" was a veritable "textbook of revolution" for the colonists in America. Along with Locke's "Two Treatises" and Trenchard & Gordon's "Cato's Letters," this volume served as pillars for the ideological foundation for the American Revolution, as well as the subsequent establishment of the American Republic.

However, despite the work's great insight and historical importance, the modern reader will certainly have a time of it when attempting to read through Sidney's lengthy and esoteric biblical references and allusions, and not to mention his in depth analysis of many other arcane topics. Thus, while this work is a rich resource on its own, I would highly recommend that any interested reader also pick up a copy of Alan Craig Houston's excellent study "Algernon Sidney and the Republican Heritage in England and America." Houston's work helps to illuminate aspects of Sidney's thought that the average reader may have misunderstood or even overlooked altogether. Nonetheless, even alone, this work stands as one of the true monuments in the history of liberty, and one can only hope that the Sidney's legacy will continue to enlighten and inspire the true friends of liberty for centuries to come.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Least known source of American Constitutional thought, November 14, 2004

By 

C. Dunn "independent thinker" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Discourses Concerning Government (Liberty Fund Studies in Political Theory) (Hardcover)

From the interesting foreword by Thomas G. West:

"Thomas Jefferson regarded John Locke and Algernon Sidney as the two leading sources for the American understanding of the principles of political liberty and the rights of humanity. Locke's Second Treatise is readily available, but since 1805 only one major reprint of Sidney's Discourses has appeared until now. This neglect is as undeserved today as it was when John Adams wrote to Jefferson in 1823:

'I have lately undertaken to read Algernon Sidney on government.... As often as I have read it, ... it now excites fresh wonder that this work has excited so little interest in the literary world.' [Adams recommends this book,] 'as well for the intrinsic merit of the work, as for the proof it brings of the bitter sufferings of the advocates of liberty from that time to this, and to show the slow progress of moral, philosophical, and political illumination in the world...'"

That ought to be recommendation enough, but if you wonder why you should read Sidney in addition to (or instead of) Locke, West's foreword is especially enlightening:

"Sidney proves to be closer to the Greek and Roman classics than Locke is. It is characteristic that Sidney quotes frequently from the ancients while Locke hardly ever does. But the ancients were not 'classical republicans' in a Machiavelian sense. Their political thought always began or ended with the individual human being, not in the sense of an isolated unit, but as a being oriented by human nature to a life in accord with reason. [West then identifies] "particular illustrations of this broad difference between Sidney and Locke".

It is unlikely that you have heard of either Robert Filmer or his book, "Patriarcha" [published in 1680, though written in 1630], a defense of the rights of kings, as it is unlikely that you live under the rule of a king. However, as often happens in the history of ideas, the ideas themselves have not died, but are rather re-outfitted in different costumes. Sidney's point-by-point rebuttal to Filmer is therefore as relevant today as it ever was.