Thomas Paine

1737-1809

Thomas Paine was an influential English-born philosopher, political activist, and revolutionary. He left a legacy on our modern ideologies and institutions, from deism to democracy to the separation of the church and state. His works provided the ideological basis for the American Revolution, and his direct and accessible rhetoric incited discussion and debate among the colonists. When Paine emigrated from Great Britain to the American colonies in 1774, tensions between the American colonists and British were reaching an all time high. The Stamp Tax Act and the Townshend Act further compounded tensions between the oppressed colonists and the aggressive British rule. In fact, Paine had arrived the same year that British rule imposed the Coercive Acts, which was a harsh response to the Boston Tea Party scandal. Paine’s ideas of rationalism, secular humanism, and democracy in Common Sense, (one of his most influential works), were heavily based on those of the Enlightenment philosophers. What distinguished his writings from theirs were his accessible style and simple but clear rhetoric, which enabled the common person to partake in contemporary debates and discussions regarding their political future. George Washington stated in a letter to a close friend: “I find Common Sense is working a powerful change[…]in the minds of many men.” Historian Edward Larkin provided further context to the situation, stating that “Paine’s pamphlet signaled a major shift in the discourse surrounding the colonies’ decade old conflict with Great Britain[… ]before its publication few spoke publicly about independence as a viable or even desirable alternative[…]after its publication independence became an attractive option to many of the colonial leaders.” Paine put into simple and direct words the powerful but inchoate feelings of the average colonist; he voiced the ideas and opinions of the voiceless, and by doing so, he incited a collectivised response to harsh British rule. However, his support of a radical democratic revolution extended beyond the colonies’ borders; in 1790, he traveled to France and actively supported the French Revolution to such an extent that he was granted honorary French citizenship for his work The Rights of Man. He advocated that a revolution is not only permissible but necessary when a government does not safeguard the natural and unalienable rights of its people. Also, he radically advocated social reforms (like minimum wage, old age pension, progressive income tax, and free universal education) which have clearly lasting implications to our day. Not all of Paine’s works were accepted so widely and eagerly; his work The Age of Reason critiques institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible, promoting the philosophy of deism as the alternative. It exposed the hypocrisy of the clergy and the corruption of the Catholic Church, as well as the need for reason rather than revelation. Clearly, aided by the tense atmosphere of the colonies and the overwhelming desire for change, Thomas Paine shaped the ideologies and institutions of the Western world with the stroke of his pen.

Zachary Manesiotis

Works Cited 

1. Kaye, Harvey J. Thomas Paine and the Promise of America: A History & Biography. Hill and Wang, 2007.
2. Durey, Michael. Transatlantic radicals and the early American republic. University Press of Kansas, 1997.
3. Claeys, Gregory. Thomas Paine: Soc & Pol Thought. Routledge, 2002.
4. Kaye, Harvey J. Thomas Paine and the Promise of America: A History & Biography. Hill and Wang, 2007.

Other Relevant Reading 

1. Paine, Thomas. Common sense. Penguin, 1986.
2. Paine, Thomas. The age of reason. Xist Publishing, 2016.
3. Paine, Thomas. Rights of man. No. 718. Broadview Press, 2011.

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy, well-known author of  “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”, was born in 1828 to a Russian aristocratic family. His father was Count Nikolai Ill’ich Tolstoi and his mother Princess Mariya Nikolaeva Volkonskaya (Hanson, 1979). Tolstoy lost his mother before he turned two years old and his father before he turned 10 years old.

After the death of his parents, he was sent to live with his “pious” Aunt Tatiana; he later claimed that she became the greatest influence of his life (Bhattacharaya, 1981). At 15 years old, he started to attend the University of Kazan, however, formal education did not suit him and he left university before his graduation. Around this time, he had inherited his family’s property at Yasnaya Polyana; Yasnaya Polyana was also the place where he was born. His lifestyle became unhealthy after that (Hanson, 1979) and, as can be seen later in his writings, he was constantly conflicted between abstinence or indulgence (Bhattacharaya, 1981). Eventually, at the age of 23, he became tired with his unhealthy way of life and he joined his brother and his regiment in Caucasus. He served until after the Crimean war. It was around this time that he had started to write. Tolstoy left the military at the age of 27, with a reputation of being non-violent(Hanson, 1979). In 1876, he converted to Christianity (Bhattacharaya, 1981) and in November 1910, he died of pneumonia in Astapovo train station, with his daughter next to him (Christoyannopoulos, 2010).

During his lifetime, Russia was gradually experiencing “despotism, orthodoxy and seldom”(Hanson, 1979). Despite being a powerful military empire at the time, it was less mechanized and industrialized than other countries (especially Britain) and so was behind the progress of other European countries.  Russia was full of different nationalities and races. In Tolstoy’s childhood, there was oppression and racism against certain groups. Many groups, Russian or not, were excluded from society’s rewards and benefits. Monetary possession and bloodline were a particular factor in this (Green, 1986). Tolstoy found himself constantly in-between the two groups, as he was born a part of the aristocracy but saw life as a peasant to possess greater happiness. There was also heavy censoring in Russia during the years Tolstoy was active as a writer. Nevertheless, Tolstoy was able to spread his ideas through his writing (Lavrin, 1946).

Although, Leo Tolstoy was famous for his Russian literature, he was also known for his radical political and religious thinking. He critiqued the state (Christoyannopoulos, 2008) and at times would use religion as either a comparison, and an accomplice of the state’s corruption in Russia. Tolstoy saw corruption in the institution of the church: he did not go to church or believe in church dogmas and took his own perspective in the religion of Christianity (Christoyannopoulos, 2010).

One of his most famous works was “The Kingdom of God is Within You”, published in 1893. Although it was not published in Russia, the writing itself moved around and was read. One idea that the book mentioned was how everyone is caught in a cycle of violence and has no chance of escaping it. Leaders controlled the populace using a series of methods: intimidating, corrupting, hypnotizing the people, and finally selecting from the men who have undergone the previous steps and succumbed to them. In “The Kingdom of God is Within You”, Tolstoy had also thought that the people had more to lose from the present economy, rather than gain. The rich would exploit the poor and pretend to be the righteous ones in society.  He also believed that the goodness could not be simultaneous with power. The good cannot become powerful and the powerful cannot be good. “The Kingdom of God is Within You” eventually ended up influencing Gandhi’s views on non-violence resistance to the state (Higgs, 2015).

Tolstoy was also a non-violent anarchist. He thought that violence was irrational, harmful and “counterproductive” and that love was the solution. He was critical of capitalism and patriotism. He saw capitalism and ownership of private property as “wage slavery” (Christoyannopoulos, 2010). Civilization and man-made laws, to him, were drenched in materialism (Lavrin, 1946).  Patriotism, to Tolstoy, was a way to control people, not give the people what they needed (Higgs, 2015 and Christoyannopoulos, 2010). Tolstoy was sympathetic towards revolutionaries (Christoyannopoulos, 2010) while at the same time, he condemned revolution. Seven years after his death, the Russian Revolution came into full swing, and ironically, Tolstoy became an indirect “stimulus” to it (Lavrin, 1946). Lenin, a significant leader in the Russian Revolution, despite disliking Tolstoy’s thinking, connected his character to his own ideals and to promote his own educated self (Green,1986).

Min Jee Kim

Works Cited

Bhattacharaya, Ashok K. “Leo Tolstoy: A Biographical Reappraisal.” Indian Literature 24, no. 2 (1981): 67-77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24158486.

Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre. “‘Bethink Yourselves Or You Will Perish’: Leo Tolstoy’s Voice a Centenary After His Death.” Anarchist Studies 18, no. 2 (2010): 11-18. http://libaccess.mcmaster.ca.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/docview/851707476?accountid=12347.

Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre J. M. E. “Leo Tolstoy on the State: A Detailed Picture of Tolstoy’s Denunciation of State Violence and Deception.” Anarchist Studies 16, no. 1 (2008): 20-47. http://libaccess.mcmaster.ca.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/docview/210984992?accountid=12347.

Green, Martin. The Origins of Non-violence: Tolstoy and Gandhi in their Historical Settings, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University, 1986.

Hanson, Earl. “Leo Tolstoy: Pedagogue and Storyteller of Old Russia.” Language Arts 56, no. 4 (1979): 434-36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41404825.

Higgs, Robert. “Tolstoy’s Manifesto on the State, Christian Anarchy, and Pacifism.” The Independent Review 19, no. 3 (Winter, 2015): 471-479. http://libaccess.mcmaster.ca.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/docview/1643164394?accountid=12347.

Lavrin, Janko. Tolstoy. New York: Russell & Russell, 1946.

Other Relevant Readings

Bicknell, Jeanette. “Lev Tolstoy and the Concept of Brotherhood.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 41, no. 1 (03, 1999): 97-99. http://libaccess.mcmaster.ca.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/docview/274674670?accountid=12347.

“Two Letters of Leo Tolstoy. on Non-Resistance to Evil.” Slavonic and East European Review 8, (1929): 242. http://libaccess.mcmaster.ca.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/docview/1293749906?accountid=12347.

Catherine the Great

21 April 1729 – 17 November 1796

 

Catherine II of Russia , also known as Catherine the Great and born Princess Sophie of Anhalt – Zerbst, was empress of Russia from 1762 until 1796 , and was the country’s longest ruling female leader. Her reign, set during a period of Russian enlightenment, saw the Russian Empire transform into one of the great powers of Europe. Furthermore, she enthusiastically embraced enlightenment ideals and corresponded personally with the salonnieres who were cultivating the enlightenment in France. It was these actions which in evitably earned her the title of enlightened despot by historians as well as herself .1 Catherine also read a great deal of philosophical works from her era and as such was exposed to most of the prominent philosophers of her time, including Montesquieu and Voltaire. As a result, she tried to rule with reason and logic as the enlightenment dictated. Despite this many of her critics questioned her adherence as many thought it was simply a ploy to garner support and to further her own selfish gains.2 Although many of these criticisms were focused on gender as they interpreted her as a mix of masculine strength and feminine vanity and so cannot be taken as credible. In contrast to the criticism many of her contemporaries saw her for a hero of the enlightenment and a great woman. A Salonniere by the name of Suzanne Necker has been quoted saying Catherine is, “the model woman of the century, she never had a taste for pleasure … and this characteristic was one of the causes of her greatness.” 3 This is further shown simply by the fact that under her rule the Russian enlightenment was at its height. Furthermore, Catherine helped to personally fund the salons which allowed enlightenment ideals and philosophers to thrive and discuss such ideas and views which would be otherwise may have been frowned upon.3

 

As well as contributing spiritually and intellectually to the Russian Empire and her peoples, Catherine II also made attempts to improve the Russian economy, expand the borders of the empire and improve the educational system. Her attempt at economic improvement was a minor success it was well below the western European standards. Historian Francois Cruzet describes Catherine’s Russia as still having a large peasantry and little private enterprise but making large strides in modernizing industry, mainly in textiles and ironworks .4 While this made her already a strong leader in the eyes of many it was the military conquests which took place under rule which solidified Russia as a great power. Where Peter the Great had failed to gain more than a small foot hold in the south, near the Black Sea, Catherine was able to conquer the south and it was under her reign which the Turks suffered their heaviest defeats.5 Catherine quite clearly held western European culture, philosophy and education close to her heart. She wanted to create a new type of person in Russia. One who would be a well-educated intellectual who would meet or even surpass the western European standard.6 Although her attempts to create a national school system were not met with success she was able to pass a great deal of educational reforms. She commissioned the first institute for higher learning aimed at girls which was completed in 1808 , and created a system were young men were educated until they were 21 years of age.7 All in all, Catherine the Great ’s reign over Russia dragged the Empire into the modern European world by cultivating the enlightenment , the economy and by expanding Russian borders otherwise contested .

 

 Matthew Barone

Works Cited

1. Kenneth C. Campbell (2015). Western Civilization: A Global and Comparative Approach: Since 1600: Volume II: Since 1600 . Routledge. p. 86. ISBN 9781317452300 .

2. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia . 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. n.p. Print .

3. Okenfuss, Max J. “Catherine II’s Restored Image, and The Russian Economy in the Age of Catherine the Great. ” Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas , Neue Folge, 45, no. 4 (1997): 521 – 25.

4. François Crouzet (2001). A History of the European Economy, 1000 – 2000. U of Virginia Press. p. 75 .

5. Anderson, R. C. Naval wars in the Levant, 1559 – 1853. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Pub., 2005 .

6. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

7. Max (2006). “If these walls …. Smolny’s Repeated Roles in History”. Russian Life. M.E Sharpe, 2012.

Additional Reading

Osteuropas, Neue Folge, 56, no. 3 (2008): 322 – 29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41052100 .

WIRTSCHAFTER, ELISE KIMERLING. “Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth – Century Russia: Father Platon at the Court of Catherine II.” The Slavonic and East European Revie w 88, no. 1/2 (2010): 180 – 203. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2078 0417 .

Okenfuss, Max J. “Catherine, Montesquieu, and Empire.” Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropa s , Neue Folge, 56, no. 3 (2008): 322 – 29. h ttp://www.jstor.org/stable/41052100 .

Billington, James H. The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Cultur e . Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1966. pp. 217 – 26. Print .

Tumarkin, Nina. “Russia’s Moral Rearmament.” The Wilson Quarterly (1976 – ) 24, no. 2 (2000): 48 – 49. http://www.jstor.org/sta ble/40260038 .

“Catherine the Great.” Wikipedia. November 26, 2017. Accessed November 26, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_the_Great#CITEREFMax2006 .

“Russian Enlightenment.” Wikipedia. October 13, 2017. Accessed November 26, 2017. https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Enlightenment#Economics .

Montesquieu

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu was born on January 18^th, 1689. Montesquieu was a French political philosopher during the Age of Enlightenment. He was an aristocrat from the south of France, in the region of Bordeaux. While Montesquieu held a high position in the traditional French society, he is most known for criticizing the system of government through his famous works, “The Persian Letters” and “De L’Esprit de Lois (Spirit of the Laws).” Montesquieu is a historically significant figure as his ideas had direct influence upon later thought and the development of government institutions.

In Persian letters, Montesquieu constructs a story that criticizes the church and state, using satire to remark the lack of liberty and religious tolerance in the characters. Arguably, his most famous and effective work was the Spirt of the Laws where he classifies the different systems of government: monarchism, republicanism, and despotism. It is through this work that Montesquieu composes new ideas on the systematic relations of government. His work supported the idea that different governments were able to thrive in different environments and outlined the importance of the separation of powers within government. His ideas on the separation of powers would form the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. This work was inspired by the corruptness of the aristocracy which Montesquieu believed was because of Louis XIV’s absolute government. Spirit of the Laws is viewed as a significant document of political science in the Age of Enlightenment.  While Montesquieu preceded the generation of intellectuals who were intrigued by man’s natural place in the universe, he himself accepted the idea that man is both intelligent and a creation of God. He reflected the philosophes who were defined by discovery and curiosity of the laws that God set in motion. It is these beliefs that enabled Montesquieu to divulge and immerse himself in the discovery of the laws by which man were to govern themselves.

Montesquieu lived during the revolutionary time marked by a series of processes that Europe underwent in the global transition to modernity. Intellectuals of this time, namely philosophes, were acquiring different information and developing new ideas that would transform society; for example, individualism, toleration, progress, and natural rights. This time is referred to as the Enlightenment. Montesquieu was an Enlightenment figure and represented many of its newly presented ideals through his works. This being the belief and understanding of natural laws, rather than supernatural, in terms of governing the universe. Montesquieu had travelled to places across the world in his research of government and politics, including England. Much of his works were inspired by the thoughts of intellectuals like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Specifically, John Locke, who stressed the notion that it was the government jobs to protect the divine rights of the people, and firmly believed in “life, liberty, and property”. These ideas are apparent within Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws, where the principles of all different governments were set into place.

Montesquieu’s critiques against the system of government was influenced by the time, where he along many other philosophes questioned what was considered ‘accepted belief’. Montesquieu outlined three different forms of government: monarchism, republicanism, and despotism in terms of the new Enlightenment idea of the social contract. He strongly believed that government should not be based upon the divine right of rule, but through the social contract. It is in the social contract that an implicit agreement is made between the government and the people, where the people give up some of their freedoms to receive a life of protection under the government. He used his work to explain how governments might be protected from corruption. He saw governments ruled by despotism dangerous for any government that ruled otherwise, and argued it was important to take preventative measures by a system in which different bodies exercised legislative, executive, and judicial power, and in which all were bound by the rule of law.

Montesquieu died on February 10^th, 1755 but his political ideas remain relevant to this day. His theory of the separation of powers has had an impact on theories in liberal politics, and on the founders of the constitution of the United States. In terms of drafting the constitution, the founders of the document itself were influenced by Montesquieu and his connection to the separation of powers. One of the American founders named James Madison, drew inspiration from Montesquieu’s idea that to secure the liberty and freedom of the people, and to prevent corruption within the government, there must be a divide amongst the powers of government. Montesquieu stated in the Spirit of Laws: “were the executive power not to have a right of restraining the encroachments of the legislative body, the latter would become despotic; as it might arrogate to itself what authority it pleased, it would soon destroy all the other powers.” With this influential knowledge, the Founding Fathers established the three branches of government within the federal constitution: executive (the President), legislative (the Congress), and the judiciary (the Supreme Court).

Chantelle Boyles

Key Terms:

Absolutism- the political doctrine and practice of unlimited, centralized authority, and absolute sovereignty, as vested in a monarch or dictator. The essence of an absolute system is that the ruling power is not subject to regularized challenge or check by any other power.

Despotism- the exercise of absolute power, in a cruel or oppressive way.

Individualism- a concept that places the focus on the individual (as opposed to the community) and the removal of barriers to achieve the highest amount of freedom for everyone.

Natural Rights- an innate set of rights and freedoms given by God that cannot be taken away or restricted by government.

Philosophe- a term for intellectuals in all fields of inquiry during the Enlighenment.

Works Cited

England and the French Enlightenment. Accessed November 12, 2017. http://www3.gettysburg.edu/~tshannon/hist106web/site6/england_and_the_french_enlighten.htm

Enlightenment Ideals. Accessed November 12, 2017. http://www.pelister.org/MAJ302/AmericanEnlightenment/EnlightenmentIdeals.html.

“BARON DE MONTESQUIEU.” Baron de Montesquieu: A Short Biography. Accessed November 12, 2017. http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/montesquieu/montesquieu-bio.html.

Bok, Hilary. “Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. July 18, 2003. Accessed November 12, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montesquieu/.

“Charles Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu.” Montesquieu, Separation of Powers, the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers. Accessed November 12, 2017. http://www.americassurvivalguide.com/montesquieu.php.

“Charles-Louis de Secondat.” Biography.com. December 08, 2016. Accessed November 12, 2017. https://www.biography.com/people/charles-louis-de-secondat-21292453.

“Online Library of Liberty.” Montesquieu and the Separation of Powers – Online Library of Liberty. Accessed November 12, 2017. http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/montesquieu-and-the-separation-of-powers.

Further Reading:

 

“SPIRIT.” Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws. Accessed November 12, 2017. http://www.constitution.org/cm/sol.htm.

Despotism

Despotism is a state of government where a ruler has absolute power. In modern usage despot and despotism is almost always pejorative. The word comes, originally, from the Greek despotes literally meaning ‘master of the house’ and usually translated as ‘lord’ or ‘owner’ (Douglas n.d.). In the Byzantine Empire Despot was an official court title bestowed on the heir apparent. Several other minor kingdoms throughout the middle ages imitated the Byzantines by having despots of their own (Billarsky 2011, 277)

When despot entered the Enlightened European’s vernacular during the 18^th century, it did so as a more general term for a king, monarch, emperor or other dictator, with no pre-existing ideological baggage (Bonney 2003).

In the mid 18^th century, ‘despotism’, as derived from the older ‘despot’ came in to use for the first time as a term to describe ideologies where the ruler of a nation should possess unlimited and unchecked power. Many enlightenment Philosophes discussed despotism. Voltaire believed that a single well-educated ruler, unburdened by debate or scrutiny, was the ideal form of government, and praised Catherine the Great as an example of this ‘Enlightened despotism’ (Mishra 2017, 98. Lentin 1971). Voltaire believed that democracy did not offer protection against the idiocy of the masses, and that an absolute sovereign who acted in the best interests of his subjects was the most effective way to govern (Shank 2015). Joseph De Maistre also believed that a single enlightened despot was the most effective kind of leadership, although he disagreed with Voltaire on almost everything else (Mishra 2017). Others such as Montesquieu (Bok 2014) and Rousseau were much more critical of despotism and despots, just as most modern thought is (Burney 1993).

During it’s Enlightenment heyday, despotism was a mostly neutral term, as wider democratic attitudes spread across the world, despot increasingly became a negative descriptor. This was especially true of the fiercely democratic United States. North American newspapers used the term as a clear pejorative as early as the 1850s (n.a. 1856).

Statistically, the use of the word despotism peaked around the end of the 18^th century, in line with the French revolution, and the broader political climate it inspired. In the wake of the incredible violence of the French Revolution, the great political thinkers of the day often had to align themselves against either the tyranny of the few that had led to the revolution, or the tyranny of the masses that had led from it. Today the western world has made its choice and despot has become a charge to level at some distant autocrat, but that was not always the case.

Grace Michael

 

Further Reading:

• Bonney, Richard. 2003. “Reconsidering Absolutism in Early Modern Europe: The development of an Idea” Ajia-Taiheiyou Ronso 13, 91-135. Historical Abstracts.

• Burney, John. 1993 “History, Despotism, Public Opinion and the Continuity of the Radical Attack on Monarchy in The French Revolution, 1782-1789” History of European Ideas 17:2/3 245-263

• Dominguez, Juan Pablo. 2017. “A State Within the State: The Inquisition in Enlightenment Thought” History of European Ideas 43:4 376-288  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2016.120360

• Lentin, A. E. 1971 “Catherine the Great and Enlightened Despotism” History Today 170-1771 Historical Abstracts

Additional Works Cited:

• Billarsky, Ivan. 2011. Word and Power in Mediaeval Bulgaria. Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninkijke Brill NV.
• Bok, Hilary. 2014 “Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/montesquieu/
• Google Books. 2013. Google Ngram Viewer: “despotism, despot” Last Modified 2017. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=despotism%2C+despot&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cdespotism%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bdespotism%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BDespotism%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cdespot%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bdespot%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BDespot%3B%2Cc0

• Harper, Douglas. n.d. “Despot” Online Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/word/despot

• Mishra, Pankaj. 2017 Age of Anger. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

• Shank, J.B. 2015 “Voltaire”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/voltaire/

• n.a. 1856 “Another Great Republican Meeting in the Tabernacle.: FREEDOM AND FREMONT. How the Despotism of the Day has Grown. Speeches of Senator Wilson, Lieut, Gov. Raymond. and Hon. B. G. Noble.” New York Daily Times, Sept. 18^th, 1856.