An Introduction to the History of the Principal Kingdoms and States of Europe

by Samuel Pufendorf

Overview

Samuel Pufendorf was a pivotal figure in the early German Enlightenment. His version of voluntarist natural law theory had a major influence both on the European continent and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, particularly Scotland and America. Pufendorf’s An Introduction to the History of the Principal Kingdoms and States of Europe (1682) became one of his most famous and widely reprinted works. It went through multiple editions during the eighteenth century, but its impact has largely been forgotten.

Pufendorf’s histories exhibited the core notions of his natural law theory by describing the development and current, reciprocal relations of individual states as collective social agents engaged in securing their own and, thus, their members’ interests, including self-preservation. Hence, they essentially functioned as vehicles for philosophical demonstration or justification. Moreover, by emphasizing empirical details and legitimating (in principle) a de facto politics of interest, the histories appealed strongly to the emerging nation-states of early modern Europe, which sought ratification of their external and internal actions, policies, and pedagogies. Pufendorf based his accounts on each country’s own historians and took care to describe its position from its own current and historical perspectives. It was an appealing approach to political history, judging from the long and diverse publishing record of the work.

This book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the history of international law and the development of historiography during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It makes available to contemporary scholars and students a carefully edited, helpfully annotated, and historically situated English version of one of Pufendorf’s most popular and influential works.

Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694) was one of the most important figures in early-modern political thought. An exact contemporary of Locke and Spinoza, he transformed the natural law theories of Grotius and Hobbes, developed striking ideas of toleration and of the relationship between church and state, and wrote extensive political histories and analyses of the constitution of the German empire.

Jodocus Crull (d. 1713/14) was a German émigré to England, a medical man, and a translator and writer.

Michael J. Seidler is Professor of Philosophy at Western Kentucky University.

Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History at the Universityof Sussex, England.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780865975125
Publisher:	Liberty Fund, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/07/2013
Series:	Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics
Pages:	768
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 2.25(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Introduction by Colin Robinson ix

WHICH WAY TO WELFARE? 1

TAXATION AND WELFARE: A Report on Private Opinion and Public Policy 19
1. The Relation Between Opinion and Policy 21
2. Opinion on Changes in Taxation and Social Benefits 25
3. Knowledge of Taxation 33
4. Opinion on the Level of Taxation 37
5. Readiness to Pay Taxes in Terms of the Use Made of Tax Revenue 40
6. Preferences in the Form of Social Benefits 44
7. Reliability and Significance of the Findings 48
8. Implications for Policy 51
9. Social Policy in the 1970s 76
Select Bibliography 79

REMOVE THE FINANCING FLAW IN “PUBLIC” SERVICES 81

CHARGE 95
Acknowledgements 97
Part 1: Populism and Prices
1. Pundits, Politicians and People 101
2. Price: Barrier or Missing Link? 114
3. Private “Public” Services 133

Part 2: You Pays Your Taxes, But You Gets No Choice
4. Education: Paying for Consumer Power 151
5. Medical Care: Making the Payment Fit the Case 172
6. Homes: Ending the Rent-Tie 180
7. From Reading to Rubbish 185
8. From Roads to Deck Chairs 202
9. From Coal to Clean Air 219

Part 3: Objections Overruled
10. Socially Undesirable 231
11. Administratively Impracticable 261
12. Politically Impossible 272

APPENDIXES:
1. True and False Measures of Public Preferences 291
2. A Note on Further Readings 294
References 299

MICRO-ECONOMIC CONTROLS: Disciplining the State by Pricing 303

THE RIDDLE OF THE VOUCHER: An Inquiry into the Obstacles to Introducing
Choice and Competition in State Schools 319
Acknowledgements 321
A Political Sequence 323
Preamble: The Economics of Politics in 1986 325
I. A Summary Narrative, 1944–86 334
II. Official Objections, 1981, and Academic Refutations, 1982 340
Appendix 1 to Section II 357
Appendix 2 to Section II 365
III. Approaches to Practical Proposals, 1981–85 367
IV. Political Rejection, 1983: Independent Theories and Official Reasons 376
V. The Forces Ranged Against the Voucher 390
Appendix to Section V 400
VI. Prospects: State and Market 403
VII. Summary and Conclusions 415
Selected Readings 417

Index 419