Conceiving the Republic of Mankind

The Political Thought of Anacharsis Cloots

Bibliographic Data

ID11348267
AuthorsAlexander Bevilacqua (0000-0003-2758-6219, Princeton University, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume38
Issue4
Pages550-569
Publication date2012-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of European Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01916599.2011.648772
OpenAlexW2125645642
LanguageEN
Citations received7

During the French Revolution, Jean-Baptiste "Anacharsis" Cloots (1755–1794) developed a theory of the world state as the means to guarantee perpetual peace for mankind. Though his ideas have largely been misunderstood, Cloots's political writings were in fact an extensive plea for a more cosmopolitan understanding of the French Revolution. His system adapted institutions and concepts of the French revolutionary republic for a world state, the republic of mankind. This essay recovers his political vision and connects it both to the heritage of eighteenth-century political thought, especially Rousseau, and to revolutionary political culture. The goal is to retrieve the meaning of Cloots's universal republic, and with it a chapter in the history of cosmopolitan thought

Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · The Republic · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · Law · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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