The Reception of Locke's Politics - From the 1690s to the 1830s (Hardcover)

Locke has iconic status as the founder of Western liberalism. His Two Treatises of Government (1689) is a classic discussion of liberty, rights, constitutionalism and revolution. He is heralded as an honorary Founding Father of the American Constitution, and has been deployed by liberationist movements in many lands. Yet there is a bitter quarrel between conservatives and liberals who dispute Locke's legacy. Locke also wrote about property and the market, and many hail him as the original philosopher of capitalism. It has been said the Cold War was about whether the ideas of Locke or Marx should prevail. But his legacy is contested here also. Social democrats claim that free marketeers have misread him. These controversies were embedded in Locke's reception from the outset.