Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

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Drawn from James B. Atkinson and David Sices' Montaigne: Selected Essays, this annotated translation of tienne de La Botie's political masterpiece offers an ideal opportunity to become acquainted with the thought of a brilliant though short-lived sixteenth-century French thinker known for "his mortal and sworn hatred for all vice," as his friend Michel de Montaigne put it, "but particularly for that sordid traffic concocted under the honorable title of justice."

Reviews

"A major piece of early modern political thought. This is now the default version in English." Timothy Hampton, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley
An elegant English version of La Botie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, which is both a key to understanding much of Montaigne and a major piece of early modern political thought." Timothy Hampton, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley
Atkinson and Sices have that rare ability . . . to discover [the French language's] virtuoso capacity to express rather than tell." Stephen G. Nichols, James M. Beall Professor Emeritus of French and Humanities, Johns Hopkins University
An excellent translation: clear, crisp and accurate. The introduction is also a helpful contextualization of the text, Botie's relation to Montaigne, and a brief discussion of the history of this important text on non-cooperation in the 20th-Century. I highly recommend it for courses in the history of political theory and of non-cooperation as a means of regime change. --James Tully, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria
A powerful rendition of La Boetie's soldierly prose (as Montaigne would have it). . . . With this unassuming book, the authors have not only offered a solid introduction to tienne de La Botie and his legacy, but also passed on to us a living document (Harry Kurz) which may yet find resonance in our own troubled times. --Jeremie Korta, Harvard University, in Sixteenth Century Journal

Author Bio

James B. Atkinson is an independent scholar. David Sices is Professor Emeritus of French and Italian, Dartmouth College.