Rachel Hammersley
This blog has a dual purpose. In the first place it is designed to raise the profile of James Harrington, the seventeenth-century political thinker who is the subject of the book on which I am currently working. Harrington's innovative and engaging ideas deserve to be better known, not least as they have particular relevance in the current turbulent political climate. It also uses history as a means of meditating on death, loss and grief, comparing my own experience of bereavement... with that of figures associated with my research.
1 November 2023
In his influential and prescient early assessment of the French Revolution, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke revealed his contempt for ordinary people - describing...
Early Modern Texts in a Digital Age
1 October 2023
The workshops for our Experiencing Political Texts project have been hugely interesting, thought provoking, often inspirational. Yet they also seem to have been cursed. After being...
Reading Early Modern Political Texts
1 September 2023
Experiencing Political Texts is an historically-focused project centring on early modern works, but it also raises questions about the communication of political ideas today. The reading...
Translating English Republicanism in the European Enlightenment
1 August 2023
I feel lucky that we have so many excellent early modern intellectual and cultural historians based at Newcastle with whom I can talk and collaborate. One of these is my friend and...