Velema Wyger, Weststeijn Arthur (eds.) Ancient Models in the Early Modern Republican Imagination

Brill, 2018. — 352 p.Ancient Models in the Early Modern Republican Imagination, edited by Wyger Velema and Arthur Weststeijn, approaches the early modern republican political imagination from a fresh perspective. While most scholars agree on the importance of the classical world too early modern republican theorists, its role is all too often described in rather abstract and general terms such as “classical republicanism” or the “neo-roman theory of free states”. The contributions to this volume propose a different approach and all focus on the specific ways in which ancient republics such as Rome, Athens, Sparta, and the Hebrew Republic served as models for early modern republican thought. The result is a novel interpretation of the impact of antiquity on early modern republicanism.Contributors are: Guido Bartolucci, Jacques Bos, Tomasz Gromelski, René Koekkoek, Wessel Krul, Thomas Maissen, Jaap Nieuwstraten, Eran Shalev, Benjamin Straumann, William Stenhouse, Wyger Velema, Arthur Weststeijn, and Christine Zabel.Wyger Velema, Ph.D. (1992), Johns Hopkins University, is Jan Romein Professor of History at the University of Amsterdam. He has published widely on the history of eighteenth-century political thought, including Republicans. Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought (Brill, 2007).Arthur Weststeijn, Ph.D (2010), European University Institute, Florence, is an assistant professor of Italian history at Utrecht University. He is the author of Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age (Brill, 2012).