SOURCE: Boesche, Roger. “Fearing Monarchs and Merchants: Montesquieu's Two Theories of Despotism,” Western Political Quarterly 43, 4 (1990): 741-61.
In this essay, Boesche looks at the theories of despotism present in Montesquieu's De l'Esprit de lois and The Persian Letters. Caught between fear of a too-powerful sovereign and a too-selfish merchant class, Boesche argues, Montesquieu contradicts himself in presenting two significantly different portraits of a despotic society.
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