Civilization and Self-Government

To all who are devoted to developing a firm intellectual foundation for the design of self-governing societies, I strongly recommend Filippo Sabetti's new book on the political thought of Carlo Cattaneo. Most of us want to support civilizations that are foundational for democracy, but Cattaneo recognized the deep challenges. Sabetti helps the modern reader take hold of the past so as to improve the future. -- Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University, Bloomington and 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize Winner
Carlo Cattaneo has been a neglected thinker in the English speaking world. And Cattaneo's project, the creation of a public science that can serve as a public philosophy for modern civilization, has been a neglected project (though less so recently). This book makes a powerful case that this has been a mistake. It corrects our view of our intellectual past, and makes its own important contribution to that public science of 'civilization and self-government,' whose great 19th century masters were Cattaneo, Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill. -- Karol Soltan, University of Maryland
Filippo Sabetti has produced a beautifully-written and richly-researched study of one of the major, if largely unknown, political thinkers of nineteenth-century Italy. In recovering the thought of Carlo Cattaneo, he not only takes us to the heart of debates about the causes of freedom and self-government but also deepens and revises our understanding of the broader traditions of liberalism and republicanism. Anyone interested in the intellectual history of Europe, and not only Italy, should read this book. -- Jeremy Jennings, Queen Mary, University of London
For all its undeniable richness, modern Italian political thought has remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world to date. Gaetano Filangeri, Sismonde de Sismondi, Carlo Cattaneo, and Pellegrino Rossi produced an impressive number of original works that deserve to be retrieved from oblivion, and yet their works are either not translated into English or continue to be underestimated in the new world. Inspired by the approach of the Bloomington school of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom, Filippo Sabetti's much-awaited work on Cattaneo is a step in the right direction. It gives us the opportunity to discover a marvelously rich thinker whose ideas on liberty, civilization, self-government, and federalism can bring an important contribution to our scholarly and political debates today. In the pages of Sabetti's fascinating book, Cattaneo comes to life as our contemporary as well as the contemporary of the major thinkers of his time from Tocqueville and Guizot to Mill and Cousin. This is a highly original and broad-ranging book that will be of interest to political scientists, historians, sociologists, and philosophers. -- Aurelian Craiutu, Indiana University, Bloomington, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
This book is a contribution to social theory and the institutional features of how DeViti's vision of cooperative state might be realized in history. * Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice *
The convincing case made here for the richness and depth of Cattaneo's thinking should invite renewed study of Risorgimento thought more broadly. * Journal Of Modern Italian Studies *
Filippo Sabetti’s very welcome book seeks to restore Cattaneo to his rightful place in European intellectual history. He has worked painstakingly through Cattaneo’s lifework (a formidable task in itself, embracing as it does so many subdisciplines in the modern social sciences) with a view to presenting a balanced account of his overall position. Civilization and Self-Government stands alone in English; and even in relation to a much more extensive literature in Italian, Sabetti’s approach is distinctive, focusing on the lasting value of Cattaneo’s theoretical work, rather than his role in the developing politics of his day. ... In sum, Civilization and Self-Government is an impressive achievement. As political theorists, we no longer have an excuse to postpone serious study of Cattaneo. Sabetti has provided us with a first-rate guide to a European thinker of great stature. * Book Reviews *