Continuity,chance, and change: The character of the industrial revolution in England

This article examines the life and works of Robert Blakey, author of the first English-language history of political thought. Studies of Blakey have typically concentrated on one aspect of his life, whether as an authority on field sports or as an historian of philosophy. However, some of Blakey’s lesser-known ventures, particularly his early Radical politics, his hagiographies, and his attempts to write a biography of Charlemagne, heavily influenced his more famous works. Similarly, Blakey’s upbringing in a Calvinist tradition, rooted in the Scottish School of Common Sense philosophy helps makes sense of his philosophical and theological commitments, yet has been largely ignored. This article provides a sketch of Blakey’s life, tying these disparate strands together, and explaining their influence upon, and relevance to, the first history of political philosophy.     

From town to town: how commercial travel connected manufacturers and markets during the industrial revolution

Positioning itself with regards to debates on the role of regionalization in the industrial revolution and on consumer and retailing revolutions, this paper uses the records of John Shaw, hardware factor of Wolverhampton, to examine how commercial travel created real spatial interactions across the industrializing economy of northern England in the period 1810–15. The paper argues that by integrating production and consumption, commercial travel played a vital part in advancing and reconciling the concurrent but apparently conflicting processes of economic regionalization and economic integration that characterized the period. Empirically, the paper contributes original data indicating concrete patterns of interaction across the space economy of early nineteenth century northern England in terms of both ‘routes’ and the intensity of interactions. The empirical material also allows for discussion of customer identities, the structure of geographically dispersed commodity chains and regional variations, if any, the nature of customer relationships.     

Iran and the revolution

Iran since the Revolution: Internal Dynamics, Regional Conflicts and the Superpowers. Edited by Barry M. Rosen. New York: Brooklyn College Studies on Society in Change, No. 47, Social Science Monographs, Boulder, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1985. 187 pp.

The State and Revolution in Iran, 1962–1982. By Hossein Bashiriyeh. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. 203 pp.

Islamic Iran: Revolution and Counter‐Revolution. By Asaf Hussain. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. 225 pp.     

Rationality and revolution

The article deals with the political thought of the young Spanish philosopher and intellectual, José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955). The main aim is to examine to what extent his political thought was articulated in a systematic manner, and to understand if it was meant to be practically implemented. Ortega's political thought has been described as liberal on the one hand, and anti-democratic and conservative on the other. The disparities regarding Ortega's politics usually arise from his declarations, which aimed to confront the changing social and political situation in Spain. To many researchers, these declarations seem incoherent, evolutionary, or ideas that can be directly deduced from the evolution of his philosophical theory. The extent to which Ortega's political theory was systematic will be understood through focusing on the role designed for the Spanish intellectuals in Ortega's declarations and works. Instead of considering his political thought in relation to either his philosophy or the political events and changing circumstances in Spain, I will attempt to examine how, during the years of his youth, his political declarations were always guided by a consistent feature with a practical political purpose: to challenge the Spanish intellectuals to promote social awareness of and reflection on the country's problems, and to consider potential solutions to these problems.