cover image: Book Review: The Medieval Constitution of Liberty: Political Foundations of Liberalism in the West

20.500.12592/26w0ew9

Book Review: The Medieval Constitution of Liberty: Political Foundations of Liberalism in the West

22 Sep 2024

The Middle Ages seem mysterious. The period from the fall of Rome in the 5th century through the 15th century is often--or used to be, anyway--referred to as the Dark Ages. Yet, this period was followed by the Renaissance, the Early Modern period and, in the 18th and 19th century, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and (to borrow from Deirdre McCloskey) the "Great Enrichment." There must have been something in the Middle Ages that was not antithetical to the birth of modernity. Another enigma, at least from a classical liberal or libertarian perspective, is that the modern, centralized state started growing in the West just after the Late Middle Ages (14th-15th centuries). Is it possible that this powerful state was a condition for the fast economic growth that characterized the Great Enrichment, as claims the so-called "state capacity" theory? If so, this would have weighty consequences for both evaluating the Middle Ages and understanding the modern world.

Authors

Pierre Lemieux

Pages
18
Published in
United States of America

Table of Contents