
This comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of Giovanni Battista Vico puts all the elements of his theories of authority, politics and civil religion in their proper relationship with his theory of history. As such, it raises provocative questions about the subsequent intellectual...

The Italian scholar Giovanni Battista Vico is viewed as the first modern philosopher of history, a judgement largely based on his obscure 1744 masterpiece, New Science. In this study Mark Lilla complicates this picture by presenting Vico as one of the most troubling of anti-modern...