The Spirit of Laws (1748)

Central to U.S. founders , Montesquieu banned by Church in France

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689–1755)

The Spirit of Laws by Montesquieu,¹ one of the first attempts to provide an interpretive structure to the history of human legislation, was banned by the Catholic Church – along with many of Montesquieu's other works. It was included on the Index of Prohibited Books.²

1. Full name: Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu. Montesquieu. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated and ed. by Anne M. Cohler, et al. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. (recommended version).

2. Edoardo Tortarolo. 2016. The Invention of Free Press : Writers and Censorship in Eighteenth Century Europe. International Archives of the History of Ideas. Dordrecht: Springer.