Alan M. S. J. Coffee

Long celebrated for her heroic feat of endurance in escaping slavery and subsequent activism, Harriet Jacobs was also an astute political thinker. Her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a remarkable philosophical text. It is one of the most insightful reflections, both on the nature of life as a slave, and on the relationships amongst slaves and between enslaved and free people. The author places Jacobs in the republican tradition of political thought. Bringing Jacobs into dialogue with Frederick Douglass, the author argues that Jacobs's emphasis on sexual abuse and the importance of slave relationships offers us a basis for a feminist republicanism. Jacobs also emphasises the structural nature of slavery, reinforced by propaganda and social prejudices. These implicate not just slaveholders but also the free population in slavery's wrongs.

Long celebrated for her heroic feat of endurance in escaping slavery and subsequent activism, Harriet Jacobs was also an astute political thinker. Her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a remarkable philosophical text. It is one of the most insightful reflections, both on the nature of life as a slave, and on the relationships amongst slaves and between enslaved and free people. The author places Jacobs in the republican tradition of political thought. Bringing Jacobs into dialogue with Frederick Douglass, the author argues that Jacobs's emphasis on sexual abuse and the importance of slave relationships offers us a basis for a feminist republicanism. Jacobs also emphasises the structural nature of slavery, reinforced by propaganda and social prejudices. These implicate not just slaveholders but also the free population in slavery's wrongs.

Famous as the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft was a wide-ranging and controversial moral and political philosopher. She engaged with many of the most polarising issues of her day: criticising social hierarchies, advocating for educational reform, analysing the French Revolution, and challenging men’s political dominance. In this illuminating introduction, Alan Coffee argues that the originality of Wollstonecraft’s feminist arguments is best understood within the context of a systematic and comprehensive philosophical system built up from a set of ‘simple’ theological and moral principles. An effective way to approach this is through the concept of freedom as independence. Drawing on all of Wollstonecraft’s works, including her novels, reviews and letters, Coffee shows how the ideal of independence illuminates and unites many of her intellectual preoccupations and her contribution to contemporary debates, such as on the structural nature of social injustice and the republican notion of freedom as non-domination. This gripping account of Wollstonecraft’s work sheds new light on one of the most important eighteenth-century thinkers.

Famous as the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft was a wide-ranging and controversial moral and political philosopher. She engaged with many of the most polarising issues of her day: criticising social hierarchies, advocating for educational reform, analysing the French Revolution, and challenging men’s political dominance. In this illuminating introduction, Alan Coffee argues that the originality of Wollstonecraft’s feminist arguments is best understood within the context of a systematic and comprehensive philosophical system built up from a set of ‘simple’ theological and moral principles. An effective way to approach this is through the concept of freedom as independence. Drawing on all of Wollstonecraft’s works, including her novels, reviews and letters, Coffee shows how the ideal of independence illuminates and unites many of her intellectual preoccupations and her contribution to contemporary debates, such as on the structural nature of social injustice and the republican notion of freedom as non-domination. This gripping account of Wollstonecraft’s work sheds new light on one of the most important eighteenth-century thinkers.