@article {650937,
	title = {The Space of the Sea in Montesquieu{\textquoteright}s Political Thought},
	journal = {Global Intellectual History},
	volume = {6},
	number = {4},
	year = {2021},
	pages = {421-442},
	abstract = {From the scientific and literary expression {\textquoteleft}flux et reflux{\textquoteright} to the political and juridical language of the {\textquoteleft}citoyens du navire,{\textquoteright} the ocean as a physical and social space is a salient thread over time and across genres in Montesquieu{\textquoteright}s political thought. Amidst the high tides of maritime expansion and oceanic trade, Montesquieu{\textquoteright}s perspective of the sea, far from static, evolved along with the thinker. This essay for the first time uses the space of the sea to navigate Montesquieu{\textquoteright}s rhetorical choices, historical perspectives, and temporal-spatial concerns, by tracing maritime themes in Montesquieu{\textquoteright}s oeuvres both chronologically and thematically. It points out that Montesquieu{\textquoteright}s early-expressed interest in the sea tides, which arose in the oceanographic context in a R{\'e}somption (1720), morphed into political metaphors in the Lettres Persanes (1721), the Pens{\'e}es and L{\textquoteright}esprit des Lois (1748). And through his study of the actual seas during his journey in Italy, recorded in the Voyages, Montesquieu further advanced his thought on the sea as a significant site of social and political activity. The goal is to bring to the fore an underlying strain of thought that preoccupied Montesquieu{\textquoteright}s intellectual development, which may in turn better contextualise his political thought in its formation.},
	url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23801883.2018.1527184?journalCode=rgih20},
	author = {Hansong Li}
}
