John Dunn (political scientist)
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John Montfort Dunn (born 9 September 1940) is a Professor of political science at King's College, University of Cambridge.
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[edit] Biography
The son of Colonel Henry George Montfort Dunn and Catherine Mary, née Kinloch, John Dunn was educated at Winchester and Millfield. He studied history at King's College, Cambridge. He was briefly (1965-1966) a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge; since 1966 he has been a fellow of King's College. A lecturer in political science at Cambridge University 1972-77, Dunn became reader in politics 1977-87, and has been professor of political theory since 1987. He has married three times: to Susan Deborah, née Fyvel (1965; divorced 1971); to Judith Frances Bernal (1973; divorced 1987) and to Ruth Scurr (1997).
[edit] Achievement
Dunn's work focuses on applying a historical perspective to modern political theory. His early reputation was based upon the careful reconstruction of the political thought of John Locke: this benefitted from Peter Laslett's critical edition of Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Together with his contemporary, the historian Quentin Skinner, he offered methodological prescriptions in the late 1960s which aimed at correcting the historical insensitivity of political science by reconstructing what past political thinkers intended to do in writing. Much of his subsequent work - reflective essays, edited collections, and several books - has tackled substantive issues in political thory, although his historical sense continues to inform a certain skepticism about the degree to which politics is ultimately amenable to reason. He is the author of The Cunning of Unreason (2001), a work that discusses how the limits of human knowledge and rationality prevent democratic republicanism from achieving all that it promises. His reflections upon the vicissitudes of democracy as a political ideal have continued with Setting the People Free: the Story of Democracy (2005).
[edit] Works
- The Political Thought of John Locke (1969)
- Modern Revolutions (1972)
- Dependence and Opportunity (with A F Robertson, 1973)
- Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future (1979)
- Political Obligation in its Historical Context (1980)
- The Politics of Socialism (1984)
- Rethinking Modern Political Theory (1985)
- Interpreting Political Responsibility (1990)
- Democracy: the unfinished journey 508 BC - 1993 AD (ed, 1992)
- Contemporary Crisis of the Nation State? (ed, 1995)
- The History of Political Theory and Other Essays (1996)
- Great Political Thinkers (ed with Ian Harris, 1997)
- The Cunning of Unreason (2000)
- Locke: A Very Short Introduction (2003)
- Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy (2005).
