The Spirit of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters explores Montesquieu’s careful treatment of the spiritual, ethical, and civic dilemmas France encountered in the early 18th Century. In examining Montesquieu’s response to Bourbon France’s commercial and political culture of this time, it will help deepen our understanding of his political philosophy.

This book’s primary purpose is to commemore the 300th anniversary of a seminal book in classical liberal thought. Montesquieu’s Persian Letters is a delightfully rich, sympathetic sattire of commercial society’s promise and discontents, covering a wide range of issues and themes that shaped the direction of liberal modernity. It consists of a series of letters largely writted by two Persian travelers to Paris, who allow modern readers to view Parisian life from the perspective of an outsider. The volume includes contributions from prominent scholars of Montesquieu’s whose classic commentaries have stood the test of time, and early career scholars who have recently unearthed new and exciting avenues for understanding this important hinge-figure in modern political thought.

Foreword, Helena Rosenblatt

Acknowledgments

PART I: The Persian Letters in the History of Political Theory

Chapter 1. Philosophizing the Passions: The Seraglio as Laboratory in the Persian Letters Céline Spector

Chapter 2. Conflict in the Persian Letters, Pauline Kra

Chapter 3. Persian Letters in Time: Adhesive Past: Bright, Unstable Present: Divergent, Fragile Futures, Michael Mosher

PART II: The Persian Letters on Nature and Convention in Politics

Chapter 4. Pitfalls of Abstract Ideals: Usbek on the Law of Nations, Andrea Radasanu

Chapter 5. Faces of Monarchy in West and East and the Limits of Traditional Jurisprudence: Montesquieu in Dialogue with Bodin in the Persian Letters, Rebecca Kingston

Chapter 6. The Struggle for Recognition and the Economy of Esteem in and out of the Seraglio, Robert Sparling

PART III: The Persian Letters on Commercial Society

Chapter 7. The Plague of High Finance in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, Emily Nacol and Constantine Christos Vassiliou

Chapter 8. The Political Economy of the Persian Letters; or, Self-Interest Wrongly Understood, in Three Lessons, Ryan Hanley

Chapter 9. Female Modesty and the Spirit of Commerce in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, Lee Ward

Chapter 10. Rica in Paris: Sociability and Cosmopolitanism in the Persian Letters., Megan Gallagher

PART IV: The Persian Letters as a Critique of Modernity

Chapter 11. Who is the Hero of the Persian Letters, Jeffrey Church

Chapter 12. Hiding in Plain Sight: Montesquieu as a Friendly Influence in The Persian Letters, Vickie Sullivan

Chapter 13. What did Usbek—and the Reader—Know, and When Did He Know It?, John T. Scott

Chapter 14. The Book of Relations: Reflections from Montesquieu's Persian Letters, Stuart Warner

Chapter 15. The Unknown Chains of Enlightenment: The Irony of Philosophy or an Ironic Philosopher, Peter Lund

About the Contributors