Neal Wood - Böcker

In this close examination of the social and political thought of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.), Neal Wood focuses on Cicero's conceptions of state and government, showing that he is the father of constitutionalism, the archetype of the politically conservative mind, and the first to reflect extensively on politics as an activity.

Conventional wisdom claims that the seventeenth century gave birth to the material and ideological forces that culminated in the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism. Not true, according to Neal Wood, who argues that much earlier reformers--Dudley, Starkey, Brinklow, Latimer, Crowley, Becon, Lever, and Thomas Smith, as well as the better-known More and Fortescue--laid the groundwork by fashioning an economic conception of the state in response to social, economic and political conditions of England. Wood's innovative study of these early Tudor thinkers, who upheld the status quo yet condemned widespread poverty and suffering, will interest historians, political scientists, and social and political theorists.

John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism by Neal Wood reframes Locke’s political and economic thought by situating it in the profound agrarian changes of seventeenth-century England. Rather than reading Locke as a theorist of emerging mercantile or industrial capitalism, Wood presents him as an interpreter of agrarian capitalism—the transformation of English countryside through enclosures, competitive tenancy, and the triadic structure of landlord, tenant farmer, and wage laborer. Through close readings of Locke’s economic memoranda, Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest (1692), and the pivotal “Of Property” chapter in the Second Treatise, Wood demonstrates how Locke’s reflections on property, labor, and improvement directly expressed the social relations of an agricultural economy in transition.By grounding Locke’s political philosophy in the economic realities of landholding and husbandry, Wood challenges the prevailing interpretations of Locke as the spokesman of bourgeois possessive individualism. He shows instead how Locke’s insistence on industry, frugality, and improvement, his valorization of the productive tenant, and his critique of unproductive brokers and idlers reflected the values of a gentry class grappling with the imperatives of capitalist farming. Linking Locke to the Baconian natural historians and agricultural improvers, the book repositions Locke’s thought within the material processes of agrarian transformation that prepared the way for political economy and, ultimately, industrial capitalism. The result is a provocative reassessment that bridges the history of ideas and social history, restoring Locke to the world of fields, rents, and labor from which his most influential political categories emerged.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism by Neal Wood reframes Locke’s political and economic thought by situating it in the profound agrarian changes of seventeenth-century England. Rather than reading Locke as a theorist of emerging mercantile or industrial capitalism, Wood presents him as an interpreter of agrarian capitalism—the transformation of English countryside through enclosures, competitive tenancy, and the triadic structure of landlord, tenant farmer, and wage laborer. Through close readings of Locke’s economic memoranda, Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest (1692), and the pivotal “Of Property” chapter in the Second Treatise, Wood demonstrates how Locke’s reflections on property, labor, and improvement directly expressed the social relations of an agricultural economy in transition.By grounding Locke’s political philosophy in the economic realities of landholding and husbandry, Wood challenges the prevailing interpretations of Locke as the spokesman of bourgeois possessive individualism. He shows instead how Locke’s insistence on industry, frugality, and improvement, his valorization of the productive tenant, and his critique of unproductive brokers and idlers reflected the values of a gentry class grappling with the imperatives of capitalist farming. Linking Locke to the Baconian natural historians and agricultural improvers, the book repositions Locke’s thought within the material processes of agrarian transformation that prepared the way for political economy and, ultimately, industrial capitalism. The result is a provocative reassessment that bridges the history of ideas and social history, restoring Locke to the world of fields, rents, and labor from which his most influential political categories emerged.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.