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Title: Discourses Concerning Government by Algernon Sidney, Thomas G. West ISBN: 0-86597-141-2 Publisher: Liberty Fund, Inc. Pub. Date: January, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

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Summary: Seminal Work
Comment: Despite its obscurity, this is a profound work of great historical importance to the foundations of the American Revolution as well as the perpetual struggle for liberty and justice. Algernon Sidney(1622-1683) was acclaimed by friends of liberty throughout the eighteenth century for his martyrdom in the stuggle against tyranny and arbitrary government. On December 7, 1683, he was executed by the Crown for the crime of high treason. While a conviction for this crime had long required two witnesses to testify for a defendant's guilt, the government was only able to produce one man, while the other witness was this very book, his great "Discourses," which were used against him because of the fact that they expounded subversive ideas.

Even today, at the dawn of the 21st century, it can quite accurately be said that his ideas are still subversive. Sidney, like his more famous contemporary, John Locke, was a staunch supporter of the natural rights of the individual to life, liberty, and estate(property). This work in particular, like Locke's "First Treatise," was originally undertaken as a refutation of Robert Filmer's "Patriarcha," which represented perhaps the clearest exposition of the theory of rule by "Divine Right." Sidney's work, however, is far more than a simple refutation. He engages in lengthy, erudite discussions of the relationship of liberty and slavery, liberty and power, master and slave, as well as virtue and corruption. Moreover, he presents an especially profound and radical case for the right to resist, oppose, reform, and even overthrow tyrannical government.

Indeed, it was these extreme notions that inspired generations of libertarian radicals throughout the English empire, but most profoundly, in the North American colonies. As the great historian Caroline Robbins made clear, Sidney's "Discourses" was a veritable "textbook of revolution" for the colonists in America. Along with Locke's "Two Treatises" and Trenchard & Gordon's "Cato's Letters," this volume served as pillars for the ideological foundation for the American Revolution, as well as the subsequent establishment of the American Republic.

However, despite the work's great insight and historical importance, the modern reader will certainly have a time of it when attempting to read through Sidney's lengthy and esoteric biblical references and allusions, and not to mention his in depth analysis of many other arcane topics. Thus, while this work is a rich resource on its own, I would highly recommend that any interested reader also pick up a copy of Alan Craig Houston's excellent study "Algernon Sidney and the Republican Heritage in England and America." Houston's work helps to illuminate aspects of Sidney's thought that the average reader may have misunderstood or even overlooked altogether. Nonetheless, even alone, this work stands as one of the true monuments in the history of liberty, and one can only hope that the Sidney's legacy will continue to enlighten and inspire the true friends of liberty for centuries to come.

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