Ep. 239: Montesquieu Invents Political Science (Part One)

Published: March 23, 2020, 1:32 p.m.

b'

On The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Charles Louis de Secondat, aka Baron de Montesquieu.

What keeps a society functioning? Montesquieu, though of course not the first political philosopher, was perhaps the first to systematically explore correlations between characteristics of a government, its people, its climate, dominant industries, religion, and other factors. Some of his ideas directly influenced the American Constitution, and some of them are very very weird.

Please support PEL!

'