Politics

Montesquieu

1689 to 1755, France

Separation of powers and the spirit behind a nation's laws.

Lessons

The Spirit of the Laws

Montesquieu’s great idea: that a nation’s laws are not arbitrary commands but grow out of a whole web of conditions - climate, terrain, religion, customs, commerce, history - that together form the spirit animating them.

The Separation of Powers

Montesquieu’s most world-changing idea: that political liberty survives only when the power to make laws, the power to execute them, and the power to judge are held by different hands - so that, in his phrase, power che…

Three Kinds of Government

Montesquieu’s striking classification: republics, monarchies, and despotisms differ not just in who rules but in the deep emotional principle that animates each - virtue, honour, or fear - the spring that makes the whol…

Liberty, Commerce, and Moderation

Montesquieu’s vision of freedom in the modern world: liberty as security under law rather than the power to do anything; commerce as a softening, civilising, peace-making force; and moderation as the master art of free…

The Oracle of the Constitution

How a French baron’s study of laws became the working blueprint of modern government - and how, two and a half centuries on, his ideas are both celebrated as the grammar of free constitutions and challenged as a brake o…