Max Skjönsberg

Max Skjönsberg is a Professor of Humanities at the Civitas Institute and a fellow in the Program on Humanities and the Western Tradition at the University of Texas at Austin.

Before joining the University of Texas at Austin, Max Skjönsberg was an Associate Professor of Humanities in the Hamilton School at the University of Florida. Earlier, he was a Leverhulme Early-Career Fellow, and a College Research Associate at Emmanuel College, both at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Professor Skjönsberg, who is Swedish-born, has also lectured in politics and history at the University of York, the University of St Andrews, and the University of Liverpool. In 2018, he held the David Hume Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.

His work has focused on the history of political thought, especially on eighteenth-century political ideas. He has written about thinkers such as David Hume, Edmund Burke, Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, Catharine Macaulay, Paul de Rapin-Thoyras, Charles Francis Sheridan, and Michael Oakeshott, as well as on topics including political parties, the Enlightenment, press freedom and freedom of speech, political modernity, political economy, ancient constitutionalism and political representation.

Professor Skjönsberg’s books range from his first monograph—The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2021)—in which he examines the concept of the political party in eighteenth-century political thought and practice, at a time when parliamentary parties first emerged as stable features of politics, to a forthcoming monograph—The Spirit of the British Constitution: Parliamentary Reform from the Civil War to the Great Reform Act (Princeton University Press, 2026)—in which he traces the history of political reform, the “political nation,” and parliamentary reform during the “long” eighteenth century (c. 1660–1832). (Please see below for a complete list of books and other publications)

In addition, Professor Skjönsberg’s articles have appeared in policy journals such as the Journal of the History of Ideas, The English Historical Review, The Historical Journal, History of Political Thought, Modern Intellectual History, History of European Ideas, Intellectual History Review, European Journal of Political Theory, Journal of British Studies, Scandinavian Journal of History, and Parliamentary History.

His book reviews have been published in The Journal of Modern History, Global Intellectual History, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, The Scottish Historical Review, History, Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies, Journal of Scottish Philosophy, Nations and Nationalism, Utilitas, Dublin Review of Books, AdamSmithWorks.org, The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, Engelsberg Ideas, among others. He has also been published in popular websites, such as Law & Liberty and National Review.

In 2021, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

He holds a PhD in History from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an MA in the History of Political Thought and Intellectual History, from University College London and Queen Mary University of London; and a BA in Contemporary History and Journalism from Queen Mary University of London and City University of London.

Books

The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2021; paperback edition 2022). [Series: Ideas in Context.] 373 pp.

Reviewed in The Journal of Modern History, Journal of British Studies, History of European Ideas, Intellectual History Review, European Journal of Political Theory, Parliamentary History, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, Journal of Scottish Philosophy, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (British Society for ECS), Eighteenth-Century Studies (US), LSE Review of Books, Law & Liberty, The University Bookman, Hume Studies, Choice Magazine, History, The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, イギリス哲学研究 = Studies in British Philosophy: The Journal of the Japanese Society for British Philosophy (as of October 10, 2025).

Hume’s Essays: A Critical Guide, co-edited with Felix Waldmann (Cambridge University Press, 2025). 305 pp.

Catharine Macaulay, Political Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2023.) [Series: Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought series.] 353 pp. Reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, and History of European Ideas (as of March 15, 2024).

Adam Ferguson’s Later Writings: New Letters and an Essay on the French Revolution, co-edited with Ian Stewart (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). [Series: Edinburgh Studies in Scottish Philosophy]. 259 pp. Reviewed in History of European Ideas and Eighteenth-Century Scotland.

The Minute Books of the Bristol Library Society, 1772–1801, co-edited with Mark Towsey (Bristol Record Society, 2022). 429 pp. Reviewed in the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society and Library & Information History.

The Spirit of the British Constitution: Parliamentary Reform from the Civil War to the Great Reform Act (Princeton University Press, forthcoming in 2026).

Hume’s History: A Critical Guide, co-edited with Felix Waldmann (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming in 2027).

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

‘Richard Champion and the Rockingham Whigs: The Aristocratic Politics of a Bristolian Quaker-Merchant in the Age of the American Revolution’, English Historical Review 138 (2023), pp. 157–84.

‘Patriots and the Country Party Tradition in the Eighteenth Century: The Critics of Britain’s Fiscal-Military State from Robert Harley to Catharine Macaulay’, Intellectual History Review, 33 (2023), pp. 83–100.

‘A Theory of the Enlightenment in Late Eighteenth-Century Sweden: Nils von Rosenstein and Scotland’s Science of Man and Politics’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 48 (2023), 427–56.

‘The Hume-Burke Connection Examined’, History of European Ideas, 49 (2023), pp. 243-66.

‘Charles Francis Sheridan on the Feudal Origins and Political Science of the 1772 Revolution in Sweden’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 83 (2022), pp. 407–30.

‘Michael Oakeshott on Libertarianism, Conservatism, and the Freedom of the English’, Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization, 10 (2022), pp. 7–14.

‘David Hume and the Jacobites’, Scottish Historical Review, 100 (2021), pp. 25-56. Runner-up for the David Berry Prize for articles on Scottish History, awarded by the Royal Historical Society.

‘Edmund Burke, the French Revolution and the Battle for the Soul of the Whig Party’, Parliamentary History, 40 (2021), pp. 543–62. Winner of the 2020 Parliamentary History Essay Prize.

‘“This Revolution in the Town”: Richard Champion and the Early Years of the Bristol Library Society’, Library & Information History, 37 (2021), pp. 149–167.

‘Ancient Constitutionalism, Fundamental Law, and Eighteenth-Century Toryism in the Septennial Act (1716) Debates’, History of Political Thought, 40 (2019), pp. 270-301.

‘Adam Ferguson on Partisanship, Party Conflict, and Popular Participation’, Modern Intellectual History, 16 (2019), pp. 1–28.

‘Adam Ferguson on the Perils of Popular Factions and Demagogues in a Roman Mirror’, History of European Ideas, 45 (2019), pp. 842–65.

‘On the Character of a “Great Patriot”: A Newly Ascribed Bolingbroke Essay’, Journal of British Studies, 57 (2018), pp. 445–466. (Co-authored with Joseph Hone.)

‘Lord Bolingbroke’s Theory of Party and Opposition’, Historical Journal, 59 (2016), pp. 947–973.

Chapters in Edited Volumes

‘“The Hand of God”: Joseph Priestley on the End of History’, in the Helsinki Yearbook of Intellectual History: Volume 6. Enlightenment Histories, edited by Marc Hanvelt, Mark G. Spencer and Mikko Tolonen (De Gruyter, 2025), pp. 299–325.

‘William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England’, in Leading Works in the History of the Constitution, edited by Chris Monaghan (Routledge, 2025), pp. 150–62.

‘Edmund Burke’s Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents’, in Leading Works in the History of the Constitution, edited by Chris Monaghan (Routledge, 2025), pp. 176–87.

‘Bolingbroke’s Remarks on the History of England and Dissertation upon Parties’, in Leading Works in the History of the Constitution, edited by Chris Monaghan (Routledge, 2025), pp. 218–27.

‘The Communication of Fame’, in A Cultural History of Fame in the Enlightenment: 1650–1770, edited by Brian Cowan, volume 4 for A Cultural History of Fame, 6 vols., general editor, P. David Marshall (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2025), pp. 23–42.

Max Skjönsberg, ‘“One of The Most Difficult Problems, That Can Be Met With”: Hume on Political Parties’, in Hume’s Essays: A Critical Guide, edited by Max Skjönsberg and Felix Waldmann (Cambridge University Press, 2024), pp. 162–86.

‘Party and Faction in Eighteenth-Century Political Thought from Montesquieu to Madison’, in Political Thought and the Origins of the American Presidency, edited by Ben Lowe (Florida: University Press of Florida, 2021, paperback edition 2024), pp. 53-73.

‘David Hume and “Of the Liberty of the Press” (1741) in its Original Contexts’, in Freedom of Speech, 1550–1850, edited by Alex Barber, Robert Ingram and Jason Peacey (Manchester University Press, 2020), pp. 171–91.

‘Representative institutions and democracy’, in The Cambridge History of Democracy: Volume 2, edited by Sophie Smith and Markku Peltonen (Cambridge University Press; forthcoming).

‘Henry Fielding and Political Thought’, in The Oxford Handbook of Henry Fielding, edited by Tom Keymer and Henry Power (Oxford University Press; forthcoming).

Review Articles and Historiographical Reviews

‘Lars Magnusson on the Development of Economic Liberalism in Sweden’, Econ Journal Watch, 22 (2025), pp. 187–98.

‘Liberty and Religion: Catharine Macaulay and the History of Republicanism and the Enlightenment’, Intellectual History Review, 32 (2022), pp. 325–34.

‘The History of Political Thought and Parliamentary History in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, Historical Journal, 64 (2021), pp. 501–13.

‘State of the Field: The History of Political Thought’, History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 105 (2020), pp. 470–83. (Co-authored with Danielle Charette, University of Chicago.) Peer-reviewed.

‘Hume and Smith Studies after Forbes and Trevor-Roper’, European Journal of Political Theory, 19 (2020), pp. 623–635.

‘The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism Revisited’, Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization (forthcoming in 2026).