Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653) and the patriotic monarch: patriarchalism in seventeenth-century political thought

This book explores the patriarchalist theories of Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653) in the context of seventeenth-century English and European political culture. The six chapters address a series of important questions regarding his oeuvre that have been hitherto ignored or, at best, left unanswered. Making use of unexplored primary material and adopting an innovative contextual reading of Patriarcha (early 1630s), this work is the first monographic study of a much discussed and often distorted seventeenth-century thinker. Combining the approaches of intellectual history and political history, the book casts new light on patriarchalism as a central theory in early modern political controversies.