On Hume's account of the origin of democratic despotism open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

The paperback of my 'Plato: a civic life' will be published on March 1st. I'll be doing some more talks and podcasts in support, and will add details to this thread as they're confirmed. More info and a pre-order link here: reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/plato

NEW BOOK! I'm very happy to say that my new book, Utopia, co-written with Douglas Mao, has been published on-line academic.oup.com/book/62279

Adam Smith on Good Public Management open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

For those who could not join us in Tokyo, there is now a recording available of John Dunn's Sakurada-kai Lecture, "Can Democracy be Rehabilitated?" at Keio. The print version is forthcoming @global-ih.bsky.social; I am just handling final edits. Here is the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMPr...

Daniele Palmer (chair), Katie Ebner-Landy (presenter), and Malcolm Bull (commentator) at the #MondaySeminar, discussing the purpose of art.

It was a great experience to be at the University of Freiburg to discuss “The Significance of the Cambridge School for Contemporary Political Theory”. Three generations of Cambridge scholars debating with many great colleagues from all over the world about new exciting directions in the field

I'll be working on an entry on #Montesquieu for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in the coming months. If you have any recommendations about secondary readings the biblio absolutely must include (especially French language ones), I'm all ears! #poltheory

Jill Frank gives the first Carlyle lecture tuesday at Oxford. www.history.ox.ac.uk/carlyle-lect...

Have never noticed this before. Karl Marx, in The Holy Family, lampooning what we now call 'Ideal Theory'.

Sagnik Dutta (Tiburg) kicks off the Lent Term #MondaySeminar in fine style discussing ethnographic approaches to the study of minority rights in India (with Tobias Müller commentating and Annabel Brett in the chair).

On Publius On Democratic Despotism open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Lawrence Hamilton, "Representative Democracy Against Oligarchy," New Political Science (2025) @thecambridgeschool.bsky.social read.dukeupress.edu/nps/article/...

The after-dinner talks are always the most fun.

Got to my office to find a treat for the archives fellow from @stuartjones.bsky.social on James Bryce: the first nonconformist student @trinityoxford.bsky.social who went on to be jurist, politician, diplomat, and is now in the dining hall as well as on this cover. Congratulations Stuart!

Foucault’s Christmas - "a Christmas day without writing, that was impossible! ... a day when, as he said, 'nothing has happened for several thousand years' " progressivegeographies.com/2024/12/25/f...

On Locke's 'illogical' liberalism (according to Bertrand Russell, Sabine, and Laski, etc.), and some comments on methods of anachronism with shout out to @duncanbell.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Three avenues toward Bonapartism in Lincoln, Laski, and Natasha Piano open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

On the Twentieth Century rediscovery of Smith as a Political Theorist open.substack.com/pub/digressi... With shout out to Glory Liu

My new book is now out in print: POLITICIANS AND MASS MEDIA IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE Examines how an expanding mass media created a new type of politician and system of transnational media politics between 1890 and World War I. www.cambridge.org/core/books/p...

Vacancies: Post-doc in Disinformation & European Democracy: vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Maastric... Ass. Prof European Political History since 1900: vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Maastric... Ass. Prof Political and Social Philosophy: www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3566...

On Natasha Piano on Burnham's Machiavellians. open.substack.com/pub/digressi... With a shout out to @rbellamy.bsky.social @hdrochon.bsky.social

Maybe of interest: docs.google.com/document/d/1... @thecambridgeschool.bsky.social

🗣️ JOB! Professor of Political Theory and the History of Political Thought at Friedrich Schiller University Jena 📅 Deadline - 11 December 2025 berufungsportal.uni-jena.de?showProcedur...

On Karl Polanyi and Adam Smith on Imperialism, and its effects. open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

The De-politicization and naturalization of twentieth Century Adam Smith (traced to Halévy) open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Carl Schmitt, State Composition and Collapse of the Second Reich: The Victory of the Bourgeois Citizen over the Soldier - trans Samuel Garrett Zeitlin, @politybooks.bsky.social, December 2025 www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

On Berlin's reading of Bacon on Machiavelli--with some excitement over Lucian. open.substack.com/pub/digressi... @jcherniss.bsky.social

I'm looking forward to presenting at the Yale Political Theory workshop next week. My paper: "Socialism and Telepathy: Collective Intelligence, Freedom, and Individuality, in Interwar Britain" politicaltheory.yale.edu/fall-2025-sc... @thecambridgeschool.bsky.social

On the Pull of Transitional Despotism on the Plebeian Left. McCormick and Isaiah Berlin on Machiavelli, Agathocles & Glory (with a shout out to @jcherniss.bsky.social) open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

What Paul is describing is scandalous. But I am also weirdly cheered up by seeing pics of him since the accident. So much willpower, such determination to rebuild a meaningful life. Unchanged is his ridiculous articulacy and humour. His substack is very good too, subscribe!

On Hobhouse and Hirst on Adam Smith open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Paul Sagar recently presented his paper on Aristotle, Williams, and Rawls to the #MondaySeminar. Here he is in today's Guardian, on the business of wheelchairs:

Out in January. cambridgeblog.org/2025/11/back...

Shklar, Althusser, and Montesquieu's purported Liberalism open.substack.com/pub/digressi... with a passing shout out to @duncanbell.bsky.social

On Pompey's Bonapartism according to Montesquieu. open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Join us tomorrow!

In my little corner of the academic world Larry Summers soiled himself many years ago when he vetoed the appointment of István Hont to a tenured post at Harvard. #nemesis

Visiting Cambridge next week and, as in the old joke about my lectures, muttering about Augustine and death.

Call for Papers: "The World in 1776/2026." 250 years after Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations blasted monopolists, mercantilists and enslavers as the scourges of a free society, what light can his ideas shed on the world today? Abstracts due December 15th. Details: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Out today (in USA) press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

On Imperial Boomerangs in Montesquieu open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Next week! Join @jacobtlevy.bsky.social’s talk at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Tom Arnold-Foster (Oxford) replies to Anton Jäger (also Oxford) on the political theory of the American Populists at the #MondaySeminar #Neo-RomanCounter-Revisionism

On Smith and Montesquieu and that sleeping Sentinel (with a touch of Machiavelli) open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Foucault's Multiple Plans for his History of Sexuality progressivegeographies.com/2025/11/16/f... - building on earlier work, and discussing a couple of other bits of evidence about the changing nature of Foucault's plans for this series from the mid-1970s until his 1984 death

Congratulations to Dr Marc Palen @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social, following the award of the Elise M. Boulding Prize in Peace History to his book, Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World (Princeton University Press, 2024). peacehistorysociety.org/phs2025/awards.php

Join us next Friday 21 for a roundtable on John McCormick's excellent new book The People's Princes at King's College London w/ comments by David Wootton (York), Lawrence Hamilton (Cambridge) & myself. There will be wine & great conversation on leadership & politics Register here 👇 shorturl.at/XmAsZ

Congratulations to @brunoleipold.com, whose book #Citizen #Marx has been awarded the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize which is given "for a book which exemplifies the best and most innovative new writing in or about the Marxist tradition". www.deutscherprize.org.uk/wp/

On Montesquieu and the enemies of truth. open.substack.com/pub/digressi...