Quentin Skinner, actual profesor de la Universidad de Cambridge en la cátedra de Historia creada por el rey Jorge II en el siglo XVIII, nos muestra un excelente ejemplo de sus posturas metodológicas para enfrentarse al pasado en este trabajo erudito y esclarecedor. Sin abusar de fuentes primarias, Skinner rescata textos embrionarios del Estado moderno que, lentamente y a través de su relato, van gestando su construcción. Skinner identificará dos corrientes: la tradición republicana, ubicada en el Renacimiento italiano desde los siglos XIV hasta el XVI, donde Maquiavelo con sus Discorsi (1513-19) es su representante más sobresaliente en la defensa de la República; y los monarcómacos o regicidas, con origen en Francia y seguidores en los Países Bajos e Inglaterra, que expresan en la Vindicae contra Tyrannos (1579) el derecho de los pueblos de ungir al rey y removerlo si gobierna tiránicamente. (Andrés Di Leo)
Author
Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was elected to a Fellowship upon obtaining a double-starred first in History, Quentin Skinner accepted, however, a teaching Fellowship at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he taught until 2008, except for four years in the 1970s spent at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1978 he was appointed to the chair of Political Science at Cambridge University, and subsequently regarded as one of the two principal members (along with J.G.A. Pocock) of the influential 'Cambridge School' of the history of political thought, best known for its attention to the 'languages' of political thought. Skinner's primary interest in the 1970s and 1980s was the modern idea of the state, which resulted in two of his most highly regarded works, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume I: The Renaissance and The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume II: The Age of Reformation.
