As the 1960s saw the publication of the major methodological statements of the
Cambridge School of intellectual history, so the 1970s saw the publication of the
major substantive studies that those statements had made possible.1 Important
works were produced by John Dunn, in The political thought of John Locke (1969) ; by
the still comparatively neglected and idiosyncratic elder statesman of the field,
Duncan Forbes, in Hume’s philosophical politics (1975) ; by J. G. A. Pocock, in The
Machiavellian moment (1975) ; and by Quentin Skinner, in The foundations of modern
political thought (1978). Consideration of some of the most recent work in the field
of modern political thought reveals indebtedness to this pioneering work; the
Cambridge School has thus become an intergenerational enterprise, complete
with many of the refining complications that necessarily follow.
