by Disha Karnad Jani
In this latest episode of In Theory, Disha Karnad Jani interviews Quentin Skinner on his new book Liberty as Independence: The Making and Unmaking of a Political Ideal (Cambridge University Press, 2025). In this book, Skinner traces how liberty as a political ideal became tied to independence and the absence of coercion through the political upheavals of early modern England, debates about absolute monarchy, the American Revolution, discussions of women’s independence under the law, and the role of slavery in defining what it meant to be free.
Quentin Skinner is emeritus professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary, University of London and former Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University. He is the author of several books, most recently Liberty as Independence: The Making and Unmaking of a Political Ideal (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
Disha Karnad Jani is a postdoctoral researcher in the Research Training Group (RTG) “World Politics” at Universität Bielefeld. Her current book project is an intellectual history of the League Against Imperialism, 1927-1937. She is the co-host of In Theory, the podcast of the JHI Blog.
