Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham

Harold J. Laski traces the transformation of English political thought across a crucial century and a half, beginning with the Revolution of 1688, which shattered the Divine Right of kings and inaugurated an age where power answered to reason rather than heredity. With characteristic rigor, Laski examines how John Locke's revolutionary doctrine of natural rights and government by consent provided the philosophical foundations for modern liberal democracy, then charts the curious intellectual fallow period that followed. The book builds toward Jeremy Bentham, whose radical utilitarianism would ultimately challenge the very framework Locke had erected. Laski writes not as a neutral chronicler but as a thinker engaged with these ideas, offering criticism and context that makes this more than mere intellectual history. For readers seeking to understand where our contemporary debates about individual liberty, governmental authority, and the social contract actually originated, this book provides an indispensable genealogy.