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  • The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Max Skjönsberg
  • Marc Hanvelt, Associate Professor
Max Skjönsberg. The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 350. Hardback. ISBN 9781108841634

Max Skjönsberg's The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain is a rich, detailed, and nuanced study of eighteenth-century ideas about party politics and the British political contexts that both inspired and were affected by their development. The study is ambitious in scope and extensively researched. With David Hume (1711–76) and Edmund Burke (1729–97) as its principal protagonists, the book is organised chronologically and centered on analyses of writings by Paul de Rapin-Thoyras (1661–1725), Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751), Hume, John Brown (1715–66), and Burke to illustrate the centrality of party, as a concept, to political debate in the eighteenth century. Skjönsberg's focus on understanding each of the texts under study in its particular historical context reveals widespread and sustained attention amongst these authors to the idea of parties. They variously assessed parties as dangerous and/or constructive political players in British politics. For historians of political thought, the monograph opens a window into a particular set of engagements with the perennial question of how division and conflict within a polity are related to its stability and overall health. For political historians, the study encourages renewed attention to the significance of party, as a concept, for understanding eighteenth-century British politics.

The principal strengths of this book are found in the nuance and historical detail of its analysis. Skjönsberg artfully lays bare for his readers important complexities in how the distinction between Whig and Tory was contested and, in particular, how that distinction was [End Page 157] intertwined with such factors as Court/Country alignments, divisions within the Whig party, republicanism, Jacobitism, and religion. A few noteworthy touchstones in Skjönsberg's rich analysis include his discussion of different invocations and versions of the ancient constitution argument, his correction of the historical record to argue against reading Bolingbroke as an anti-party thinker, his discussion of the historical context for Brown's An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (1757–58), and his presentation of Hume's essay "Of Superstition and Enthusiasm" as primarily focused on divisions within Protestantism that were more directly relevant to the British political context of the time than was the distinction between Protestantism and Catholicism. Skjönsberg also draws for his readers significant connections amongst these authors—for example, Hume's relationship to Rapin—and incorporates discussions of a range of other authors for additional context. As a result of this complex history, he argues, we can identify in the eighteenth century a web of evolving principles that defined party membership.

Appreciating the level of historical detail in this book, however, raises a question about its audience. For whom is it written? Many of Skjönsberg's detailed discussions of the political contexts for the texts under study appear to be aimed at readers already steeped in eighteenthcentury political thought. And many such readers will likely find these discussions highly interesting and illuminating. But, Skjönsberg's principal conclusion—that questions about whether parties were positive or negative forces in politics figured prominently in the political discourse of the age, and that the answers defended were both varied and nuanced—may do little to shift or challenge experts' understandings of the period. On the other hand, less well-informed readers may find themselves becoming lost in some of the intricate details of Skjönsberg's various discussions of historical context and particular party conflicts, especially when these discussions move quickly and include specialised references—e.g., to "Cobham's Cubs" (218)—with which they may be unfamiliar.

One defining feature of the book is Skjönsberg's chronological approach. His commitment to this approach is a double-edged sword. On one hand, his step-by-step treatment of the texts greatly facilitates his endeavour to place each in its historical context. On the other hand, however, it...

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