The labour republicans and the classical republican tradition: Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885115602843 |
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Author | Frank Lovett |
| Subject Matter | Review Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
2018, Vol. 17(2) 244–253
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885115602843
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Review Article
The labour republicans and
the classical republican
tradition: Alex Gourevitch’s
From Slavery to the
Cooperative Commonwealth
Frank Lovett
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Alex Gourevitch, From slavery to the cooperative commonwealth: labor and republican liberty in the
nineteenth century. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2015; 213 pp. $80 (hbk).
Abstract
Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth is a valuable contribu-
tion to republican historiography: in reconstructing the ideas of the 19th century
American labour republicans, this work significantly expands and enriches our appreci-
ation of the classical republican tradition. While the labour republicans are convincingly
shown to have made important contributions to that tradition, stronger claims that they
fundamentally transformed republicanism are less persuasive.
Keywords
Republicanism, slavery, wage-labour, civic virtue, freedom
The revival of interest in the classical republican tradition has generated a wealth of
new historical studies over the past several decades. It is fair to say that following
the path-breaking contributions of J.G.A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner among
many others, our understanding of the development of early modern political
thought has been fundamentally transformed (Pocock, 1975; Skinner, 1978). But
scholars interested in the classical republicans have rarely strayed beyond the basic
historical sequence established by Pocock – roughly, from Machiavelli through
Harrington to Madison. An occasional nod to Tocqueville aside, the classical
republican tradition is often assumed to have run its intellectual course by the
time John Adams published his Defense of the Constitutions in 1797, and there
Corresponding author:
Frank Lovett, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA.
Email: flovett@wustl.edu
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