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Title: Lectures on Modern History by Lord Acton ISBN: 0-8446-1504-8 Publisher: Peter Smith Pub Pub. Date: 01 June, 1987 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $11.50

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: An Illustrious Historian
Comment: Lord Acton, (1834-1902), was among the most illustrious historians of nineteenth century England. He was one of the best-educated and well-traveled men of his time. He had a deep devotion to individual liberty and a profound understanding of history. He never published a book, which is a great shame. His enormous reputation is based on essays, notes and lectures he gave at Cambridge University as Regius professor starting in 1894. This book is a collection of lectures he delivered tracing the thought and history of European politics from the end of the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. His lectures are lucid and fast paced, no wasted words. His last lecture is on the American Revolution in which he writes: "The development of the principles of Federalism, has produced a community more powerful, more prosperous, more intelligent, and more free than any other which the world has seen".

As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found this book a splendid collection of lectures by an eminent historian written for anyone who wants to understand European history.

Rating: 5
Summary: Absolute excellence
Comment: Lord John Acton (1834-1902) is now chiefly remembered for his axiom, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." However, Acton was a historian of international repute, whose championship of freedom of conscience caused his near excommunication over the adoption of the principle of Papal Infallibility in 1870.

Lord Acton did not publish a book during his lifetime, but in 1895 he was made Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, where he made a number of astounding lectures. In 1906, a number of his lectures were compiled into book form; the result is this book, Lectures of Modern History. Beginning with his inaugural lecture in 1895, On the Study of History, the book then launches into a history of Europe and European thought from 1500 to 1787 and the American Constitutional Convention.

This book has been described as the History of Liberty, but it is more than that. Delivered with power and passion, it is almost a religious tract of liberty. I found the dialogue to be gripping (a word I don't often apply to non-fiction) and informative. I did not expect much from such an old work, but was quite pleasantly surprised. With this work I now see that Lord Acton's reputation was very well deserved. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.