Today's New York Times carries an obituary of the historian J.G.A. Pocock. The writer considers the most notable among Pocock's work to be the six-volume Barbarism and Religion, a study of the life and times of Edward Gibbon. The last volume of this work came out in 2015, when Pocock was ninety or ninety-one.
Of Pocock's works, I have read only The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. This was recommended by a friend who I think took a class from Pocock at Washington University. The Machiavellian Moment made interesting reading in the 2008 election season, when questions of virtù and prudence, ottimati and popolo came to one's attention. (That may be why I remember the Italian chapters better than the Atlantic chapters.)
I don't think that I will be reading the six volumes of Barbarism and History. For one thing, this would require sitting down and reading all of Gibbon with close attention before I started. But perhaps I will track down a copy of Political Thought and History.
No comments:
Post a Comment