In recent years, republican political thought has attracted much scholarly interest, in particular as an outcome of the publications of J. G. A. Pocock. Although the Anglo-American branch of republicanism has predominated in this line of scholarship, other varieties have not escaped attention, especially under the influence of the likeminded writings of Quentin Skinner on republican liberty. The concomitant publication of modern editions of pivotal texts, like those of Neville and Moyle, Harrington, and recently of the Discourses on government of Algernon Sidney, confirm this tendency.Sidney's Court maxims, written some twenty years before the Discourses, has never had an edition either contemporary or modern, and was only recently saved from perennial oblivion by the Oxford historian Blair Worden, who discovered it in Warwick Castle in the 1970s.

在政治理论领域，“剑桥政治思想史原著系列”作为主要的学生教科丛书，如今已牢固确立了其地位。本丛书旨在使学生能够获得从古希腊到20世纪初期西方政治思想史方面所有最为重要的原著。它囊括了所有著名的经典原著，但与此同时，它又扩展了传统的评价尺度，以便能够纳入范围广泛、不那么出名的作品。而在此之前，这些作品中有许多从未有过现代英文版本可资利用。只要可能，所选原著都会以完整而不删节的形式出版，其中的译作则是专门为本丛书的目的而安排。每一本书都有一个评论性的导言，加上历史年表、生平梗概、进一步阅读指南，以及必要的词汇表和原文注解。

本丛书的最终目的是，为西方政治思想的整个发展脉络提供一个清晰的轮廓。

Preface

Note on the text

Introduction

Principal events in Sidney's life

Bibliographical note

Biographical notes

Court Maxims

Index of biblical quotations

Index of proper names

Index of subjects