This has been a semester of not just one but two courses based on a a big classic. As I explained recently, I gave a course on the whole of Montaigne’s Essays. I also gave a course on the whole of The Spirit of the Laws, by Charles de Secondat, better known as Montesquieu. I won’t go so far as to suggest that Montesquieu should be given a central role in introduction level courses. Rousseau is just too obvious an alternative for dealing with Enlightenment political theory, and himself follows on from Machiavelli or Hobbes as the standard opening figures for introductions to modern political theory.
I will only go so far as to say that Montesquieu deserves to feature more frequently, though preferably with some attempt, which does creates difficulty, at incorporating passages that represent the different aspects of The Spirit of the Laws properly. A course devoted to Montesquieu is a great way of getting deeply into questions such as: the relation between history and theory, the relation between political concepts in antiquity and modernity, and not forgetting the Medieval concepts; development of law as key to concepts of sovereignty, and therefore the basic concepts of political philosophy, as well as key to political economy; the multiplicity of different political forms and examples; the role of physical geography in history, political economy, and political life; the importance of gender relations and desire as key to social and political forms; comparisons between European political systems and those of the rest of the world; the role of colonialism in the politics of the European metropolis; the importance both of classical models and of states on the periphery of the Greek and Roman worlds; the place of war, invasion, force, and ethnic domination in the formation of modern European states.
On the more negative side, Montesquieu’s understanding of gender relations does include an excess of fascination with the harem in ‘despotic’ countries and the social role of female flirtation in ‘monarchies’, his understanding of the ‘south' is bursting with negative stereotypes, and he certainly misunderstands the Ottoman polity as a pure naked personal despotism, with no restraints on the power of the Sultan apart from religion. Nevertheless, Montesquieu is no worse than we would expect from his time in these kinds of leanings, and even where he looks obnoxious now he is often advanced in at least raising issues that expand the range of historical and political thought, pushing towards what we now understand as the social sciences.
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