POLITICS AND HISTORY: MONTESQUIEU ROUSSEAU MARX

In the first two essays of this book, Louis Althusser analyses the work of two o
f the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment - Montesquieu and Rousseau. He show
s that although they made considerable advances towards establishing a science o
f politics, particularly in comparison with the theorists of natural law, they n
evertheless remained the victims of the ideologies of their day and class. Monte
squieu accepted as given the political notions current in French absolutism; Rou
sseau attempted to impose by moral conversion an already outdated mode of produc
tion.