Chris Jones’ new essay collection, Rethinking Medieval and Renaissance Political Thought: Historiographical Problems, Fresh Interpretations, New Debates (Routledge), co-edited with Takashi Shogimen, was released on 16 June and made Amazon Japan’s list of top ten foreign books.
The book re-introduces the history of western political thought in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the wider disciplines of History and Political Science. Thinkers such as Machiavelli and Marsilius of Padua are read in new ways; less well-known texts, such as the Irish On the Twelve Abuses of the Age, offer new perspectives. Chris’s own contribution to the volume includes an historiographical essay entitled “Medieval & Renaissance Political Thought: Past, Present, … and Future? An Essay”.
Chris has been based at the Sorbonne in June where he is working on a joint project aimed at asking new questions about the medieval political theorist Giles of Rome. The project is supported by a French Embassy mobility grant. He has also been in Maastricht, where he was invited to record a podcast discussing his 2020 book on the relevance of studying the Middle Ages, which is now the focus of a course there.
On the 19 June, his edited section “Powers, 1100-1550”, the culmination of a multi-year project featuring 60+ articles, was released as part of Routledge Resources Online – Medieval Studies. Chris was also appointed Chief Editor of H-France Review in June, a leading forum for Francophone studies, which includes over 4000 subscribers from some 40 nations.
