Recherches sur l'origine du despotisme oriental. Ouvrage posthume

New edition.

Half calf binding in tan, spine with five raised bands tooled in gilt with gilt compartments decorated with floral motifs, blond calf title label, green paper boards with scratches, some rubbing to edges, red edges, contemporary binding.

Spine restored and rubbed, tear without loss to the head of pages 33–34 and 35–36, ink marginal note on the title page, which has been trimmed by the binder.

The first edition of Recherches sur l'origine du despotisme oriental dates from 1761, and the text was extensively revised by Baron d’Holbach to reflect his atheistic views, as he was in fact the editor of all the works attributed to Boulanger, who died in 1759.

Originally conceived as a commentary on Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois, the work condemns in equal measure what it calls “theocracy” (in reality, any transcendent source of power) and “despotism” (in effect, any form of unlimited monarchy, wrongly associated with non-Western societies), and is clearly aimed at criticizing the regimes then in force in Europe.