Montesquieu

Montesquieu was a Bordeaux magistrate and wine grower who sold his office to travel and write. The Persian Letters, in which two visitors from Isfahan describe France to their friends, was the comic hit of 1721 and the model for every later outsider’s view of Europe. The Spirit of the Laws, twenty years in the making, examined how climate, commerce, religion and custom shape a nation’s laws, and argued for the separation of powers that the American founders took from him. He was the most cited author in the debates over the Constitution.