On Sovereignty: Four Chapters from The Six Books of the Commonwealth (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
(By Jean Bodin)
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| Author | Jean Bodin |
This theory, however, also contained a seductive but erroneous thesis that was of great importance for the development of royalist ideology: the idea that sovereignty is indivisible, that the entire power of the state has to be vested in a single individual or group.
This thesis, together with the crisis of authority in the French religious wars, led Bodin to a systematically absolutist interpretation of the French and other contemporary monarchies. His primary aim was to exclude any legal ground of forcible resistance. A king of France, he hoped, would continue to adhere to moral and prudential limitations, but a proper king could not be lawfully constrained.
This is the first complete translation of these chapters into English since 1606. It is accompanied by a lucid introduction, a chronology, and a bibliography. [from the back cover]”
