Description: This collection of essays by Christopher J. Berry spans several decades and multiple shifts across Scottish Enlightenment, Hume and Smith studies. It brings together classic essays - some of which are difficult to find - with 3 new pieces, which cumulatively constitute a distinct interpretation. Clustered around the themes of sociability, the Humean science of man and the Smithian engagement with commerce and morality, these collected works will be of considerable value to those working in political philosophy, the history of ideas and the history of economic and social theory. Also included is a substantial introduction which, alongside Berry's personal intellectual history, provides a commentary on the development of the study of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Brief description: Chris Berry is Professor Emeritus of Political Theory at the University of Glasgow, which he joined from 1970, from the LSE where he completed his doctorate. He is best known for his work on the Scottish Enlightenment and on the 'Idea of Luxury' and he has given invited keynote lectures on these themes in China, Japan, Chile, the US and in Europe. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Review Quotes: Chris Berry's hybrid conceptual inquiries into the political theory of the Scottish Enlightenment are utterly distinctive. Though skeptical of a distinctive 'Berry-view', nobody else writes about these topics as he has done for a generation, and reading these essays newly arranged together gives a singularly enlightening sense of both his intellectual evolution and the transformation of his field of study since the 1960s.-- "Duncan Kelly, University of Cambridge"