Book excerpt: "Oakeshott and His Contemporaries is an exploration of the ideas of one of the most important twentieth-century English political philosophers vis-a-vis related ideas in the thought of seven prominent European thinkers, spanning a millennium and a half. The intent of the exploration is not an attempt to uncover Oakeshott's intellectual influences (a dubious project in the case of any original thinker), but rather to show the importance and coherence of Oakeshott's various themes by showing how they modify, amplify, and contrast with similar and related themes in the thought of seven better known thinkers - Montaigne, St. Augustine, Hegel, Hobbes, Benjamin Constant, Rousseau, and Hume."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved