Queen Christina of Sweden and Her Circle: The Transformation of a Seventeenth-Century Philosophical Libertine (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 289 But for philosophers the value of the book lies not in these overwhelming particulars but rather elsewhere, in Morford's examination of Lipsius's political thought, his Stoic moral philosophy, and his special synthesis of Stoicism and Christianity. Unfortunately these topics are not discussed critically. Generally Morford either reports without analysis what Lipsius cites from Tacitus, Seneca, Epictetus, et al., or simply paraphrases what Lipsius says. To be sure, he does engage some large and important questions about Lipsius, especially concerning his personality, the role of Christianity in his life and thought, and his conception of the primary relevance of classical scholarship for current affairs. But even here Morford's solutions are neither clear nor compelling; too often heaps of detail take the place of probing analysis and conceptual clarification. Especially disappointing is his rather pedestrian, unanalytical paraphrase of the De Constantia (158-69), a work that importantly anticipates many of the central problems that plague those, like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, who will, in the next century, seek to synthesize Biblical faith and the new science. Having read Morford's book, my excitement has waned. To be sure, his excellent, prodigious scholarship provides us with a mine of information. But the big problems that he confronts about Lipsius and Rubens are not adequately solved, and more importantly he does not significantly advance our philosophical and historical understanding of Lipsius's Neostoicism and its impact. A creative and illuminating study of the role of Stoicism in early modern philosophy and culture is still needed. MICHAEL L. MORGAN Indiana University Susanna Akerman. Queen Christina of Sweden and Her Circle: The Transformation of a Seventeenth-CenturyPhilosophicalLibertine. Brilrs Studies in Intellectual History, Volume 21. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991. Pp. xv + 339- Cloth, $74.36. Queen Christina of Sweden (~626-89) was one of most important, controversial, and enigmatic figures in the seventeenth century. What she did was extraordinary: as a Protestant, she converted to Catholicism; as queen, she abdicated her throne and left her country; as a patron, she supported one of the most active intellectual circles in Europe and corresponded with the foremost thinkers of her day. From her contemporaries , she provoked ridicule and admiration, inspired controversy and fear. For the twentieth-century scholar, she creates an enormous problem. The information that we inherit is inconsistent, the views of her contemporaries and subsequent biographers contradictory. The motivations behind her extraordinary behavior have remained mysterious: was her conversion religiously or politically motivated, was her abdication an act of selfishness or calculation, were her intellectual pursuits fuelled by a desire for knowledge or for fame? Susanna Akerman's book on Christina is an impressive attempt to set the record straight and to offer a coherent story about the most significant events of Christina's religious and political life. But it is more than just a book about the queen of Sweden: because Christina's life contains all the intellectual fecundity and religious controversy 290 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3 I : 2 APRIL 1993 of her time, Akerman's thorough study of this extraordinary figure becomes a source book for many of the most important intellectual currents of the seventeenth century. Akerman's book is divided into five parts and includes a list of manuscripts and rare sources on Queen Christina as well as two appendices: one a list, with brief descriptions, of Christina's written compositions; the other a survey of "Libertine Pamphlets " written about the queen in her lifetime. In Part I, Akerman discusses the various interpretations of the conversion and abdication to which these pamphlets have given rise, presents her own thesis, and discusses the role that Descartes may have played either in Christina's conversion or in the development of her thought. Akerman argues that both the abdication and conversion were motivated by Christina's "selfimage as an agent in European politics" who could "as an unbound royalty.., cause the formation of a new political constellation in Europe" (6) and that this self-image itself was firmly rooted in Christina's philosophical libertinism, specifically in the belief in a single universal spirit, and in her Millenarianism. It is Akerman's view that Descartes had...