SOURCE: Schaub, Diana J. “Montesquieu's Untraditional Despotism.” In Erotic Liberalism: Women and Revolution in Montesquieu's Persian Letters, pp. 19-39. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.
In this excerpt from her study of Montesquieu's Persian Letters, Schaub discusses Montesquieu's concept of despotism, comparing it to the political philosophy of Tocqueville, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke. Schaub links Montesquieu's own philosophy to his positive view of pleasure and sexuality, embodied in the Persian Letters in his treatment of the women of the seraglio.
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