A Petty Statesman: Writings on war and international affairs

David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish historian, philosopher, economist, and statesman, is considered the most important author ever to write in English in the XVIII century. Along with the works that made him famous all over the world, such as A Treatise of Human Nature (1739); Essays, Moral and Political (1741-1742); and History of England (1754- 1762), he wrote deeply important accounts of his participation in public affairs, as the secretary of a general, an analyst of war, a diplomat and under-secretary of state.

Spartaco Pupo is Associate Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Calabria. His research has mainly focused on David Hume’s political thought, to which he has dedicated several works with the purpose of rediscovering the figure of Hume as an influential political theorist and statesman. He has edited and introduced the Italian complete edition of Hume’s political writings (Libertà e moderazione, 2016), the first Italian edition of the Humean writings on war (Scritti sulla guerra, 2017), of the Hume-Rousseau dispute (Contro Rousseau, 2017), and of the Humean youthful writings (Civiltà e barbarie, 2018).