Montesquieu and England:

Enlightened Exchanges 1689–1755

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Ursula Haskins Gonthier

The Enlightenment World

Gonthier sets Montesquieu’s work in the context of early eighteenth-century Anglo-French relations. She takes a comparative approach to show how Montesquieu’s engagement with English thought and writing persisted throughout his writing career. He was particularly influenced by the social and political theories of Hobbes and Locke, the writings of the Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, and essays that appeared in Addison and Steele’s Spectator and Bolingbroke’s Craftsman. Gonthier argues that Montesquieu’s work as a site of intellectual and cultural exchange between England and France during the early Enlightenment.

Readership

Eighteenth-Century Studies, History of Ideas, Cultural History

Contents

Chapter 1: Cross-Channel currents: Lettres persanes (1721)
Chapter 2: Literary migrations: Voyages en Europe (1728–31)
Chapter 3: Reconsidering Rome: Considérations sur les […] Romains (1734)
Chapter 4: Cosmopolitan constitutionalism: L’Esprit des lois (1748)
Chapter 5: Aesthetic alliances: Essai sur le goût (c.1753–55)

Related titles

• Eighteenth-Century Political Biographies
• The Unpublished Letters of Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

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