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9781107033177

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'Alex Gourevitch's new book powerfully challenges received understandings of the relationship between liberal and republican ideas and unsettles familiar narratives about the history of American political thought. He shows that republican political theory is not as automatically or easily egalitarian as has often been assumed; that nineteenth-century laissez-faire free labor doctrines themselves made civic and not only liberal claims; and, most importantly and centrally, that those he identifies as 'labor republicans' offered a neglected, fascinating, and distinctively American critique of capitalism and wage labor. From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth is an exciting and highly original work.' Jacob T. Levy, Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory, McGill University 'This is a mind-opening study of an American movement in which the republican idea of freedom was invoked in support of workers. It reminds us that, traditionally understood, freedom argues not just for an open market and a transparent state, but for employment and workplace conditions that guard against servitude and servility. The book makes for salutary reading in an age of 'business-friendly' government.' Philip Pettit, L. S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University, and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University 'Every once in a rare while, a book comes along with an argument that, once advanced, not only changes how we think but makes you wonder how we ever could have thought anything else. Alex Gourevitch has written such a book ... The transformative insight at the heart of [this] book is that in the nineteenth century, in the United States, slavery was not a rhetoric but a reality, which drove some of the most breathtaking innovations in how republicans thought about freedom. And once slavery was abolished, its successor - wage slavery, as it was called - drove even more innovations. What emerges from Gourevitch's treatment is a wholesale reconsideration of the republican tradition, in an utterly novel setting ... Once we've read this book and digested its implications, we'll never talk about freedom, republicanism, or domination - not just in the past but in the present - in the same way.' Corey Robin, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Advance praise: 'Alex Gourevitch's new book powerfully challenges received understandings of the relationship between liberal and republican ideas and unsettles familiar narratives about the history of American political thought. He shows that republican political theory is not as automatically or easily egalitarian as has often been assumed; that nineteenth-century laissez-faire free labor doctrines themselves made civic and not only liberal claims; and, most importantly and centrally, that those he identifies as 'labor republicans' offered a neglected, fascinating, and distinctively American critique of capitalism and wage labor. From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth is an exciting and highly original work.' Jacob T. Levy, Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory, McGill University Advance praise: 'This is a mind-opening study of an American movement in which the republican idea of freedom was invoked in support of workers. It reminds us that, traditionally understood, freedom argues not just for an open market and a transparent state, but for employment and workplace conditions that guard against servitude and servility. The book makes for salutary reading in an age of 'business-friendly' government.' Philip Pettit, L. S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University, and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University Advance praise: 'Every once in a rare while, a book comes along with an argument that, once advanced, not only changes how we think but makes you wonder how we ever could have thought anything else. Alex Gourevitch has written such a book ... The transformative insight at the heart of [this] book is that in the nineteenth century, in the United States, slavery was not a rhetoric but a reality, which drove some of the most breathtaking innovations in how republicans thought about freedom. And once slavery was abolished, its successor - wage slavery, as it was called - drove even more innovations. What emerges from Gourevitch's treatment is a wholesale reconsideration of the republican tradition, in an utterly novel setting ... Once we've read this book and digested its implications, we'll never talk about freedom, republicanism, or domination - not just in the past but in the present - in the same way.' Corey Robin, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Author Information

Alex Gourevitch is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brown University. He has previously served as an assistant professor at McMaster University, a postdoctoral research associate for Brown University's Political Theory Project, and a College Fellow at Harvard University. Gourevitch is the co-editor of Politics without Sovereignty: A Critique of Contemporary International Relations (2007). His work has been published in Political Theory, Modern Intellectual History, Constellations, Public Culture, Philosophical Topics, and the Journal of Human Rights. He has also written for magazines such as Jacobin, Dissent, Salon, The Chronicle Review, N+1, The American Prospect, and Washington Monthly, and he is co-author of the blog The Current Moment.

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