I have sought to develop an approach to political philosophy that throws light on the problems of the present age through contextual studies of the history of modern political thought. I have drawn inspiration from Wittgenstein, Sir Isaiah Berlin, the Cambridge school of John Dunn, John Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and Richard Tuck, Michel Foucault's histories of the present, and the work of Charles Taylor. My approach is thus a contribution to the broad and pluralistic movement to re-examine the relationships between political philosophy and its history that these authors and others set in motion in the post-war era. It is therefore an honour to have these essays published in the Ideas in context series, which exemplifies this European and American movement and whose first publication, Philsophy in history (1984), is one of the best statements of its main themes.

All the essays are concerned first with understanding the political philosophy of John Locke in a historically sensitive manner by interpreting his writings in light of the discursive and practical contexts in which they were written, published and read. The appropriate contexts are various and overlapping, for authors such as Locke and his adversaries were doing many things in writing a text, and so it is necessary to approach the same text from many different contexts to understand it. They range from specific debates and events in England to European political movements and intellectual traditions.