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Category Archives: Barbarians

Primal Liberty

It has been suggested that the Indian depicted on the bottom right of the frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes’ De Cive – the representation of primal libertas – was inspired by John White’s watercolors. Below is Plate 48 from America 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White edited by Paul Hulton (U. North Carolina Press and [...]

Barbarians, Old and New

On May 19th at 9:00 AM in a room yet to be announced, I’ll be giving the first public presentation on my work on barbarians and savages, drawing upon Hobbes and Montesquieu as examples. Apparently my session is entitled “Fundamentalisms” (I’m not sure why!) as one other person is doing a paper on Israeli fundamentalism [...]