Series: Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought

Dazai Shundai (1680–1747) is a critical figure in Japanese political thought, who developed his philosophy in response to a perceived crisis in the status of the ruling samurai class, of which he was a member. This volume introduces sections from his most significant work of political thought, Keizairoku (1729), and its addendum Keizairoku shūi (1744). Extracts present Shundai's program of...

Throughout the nineteenth century, Spanish American writers and thinkers grappled with their unique circumstances of independence after three centuries of Spanish colonial rule. The emergence of a significant number of new polities that adopted representative institutions in an era when absolutism prevailed in Western Europe, their general adoption of republicanism, and their complex demographic composition all posed serious challenges for...