Jean Bodin et Le Droit de la République

Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1989. First Edition. 310 pages; 24 cm. Fine(-) with scant saings of edge-wear. Paperback. ISBN: 9782130423560, 2130423566

In French. Uncommon in US. // Jean Bodin (c. 1530–1596) was a French jurist, philosopher, and political theorist whose intellectual legacy helped shape early modern concepts of sovereignty and statecraft. Trained in law and active during the turbulent Wars of Religion, Bodin sought a framework for political stability rooted in legal order and unified authority. His magnum opus, Six Livres de la République (1576), articulated the theory of sovereign power as absolute, indivisible, and perpetual—laying foundational ground for the modern state. Yet Bodin was no mere authoritarian: he tempered his realism with appeals to natural law and justice, and his views on religious tolerance were notably progressive for his time.Bodin was also a polymath, contributing to historiography, economics, and demonology. His Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (1566) advanced a comparative and critical approach to history, while his Démonomanie des sorciers (1580) expressed the era’s anxieties about witchcraft, though paradoxically informed by his rationalism. A subtle thinker navigating the crossroads of Renaissance humanism and emerging modernity, Bodin remains a figure of enduring interest to scholars of political thought. // Droit constitutionnel histoire, État, France, History, Philosophie politique, Political science, Political science France History, Political science History France, State, The, politikai filozófia