The first of three volumes of essays by Quentin Skinner, one of the worlds leading intellectual historians. This collection includes some of his most important philosophical and methodological statements written over the past four decades, each of which has been carefully revised for publication in this form. All of Professor Skinners work is characterised by philosophical power, limpid clarity, and elegance of exposition, and these essays, many of which are now recognised classics, provide a fascinating and convenient digest of the development of his thought.

QUENTIN SKINNER is Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College.

General preface; Full contents: volumes 1-3; Acknowledgements; Conventions; Volume 1: Regarding Method: 1. Introduction: seeing things their way; 2. The practice of history and the cult of the fact; 3. Interpretation, rationality and truth; 4. Meaning and understanding in the history of ideas; 5. Motives, intentions and interpretation; 6. Interpretation and the understanding of speech acts; 7. 'Social meaning' and the explanation of social action; 8. Moral principles and social change; 9. The idea of a cultural lexicon; 10. Retrospect: studying rhetoric and conceptual change; Bibliography; Index.