I don't have much to say except that this is a really well put together edition of The Spirit of the Laws. The translation is very readable. The introduction is well written. And the notes at the beginning of each book are very helpful.

For almost 300 years this classical political work of Montesquieu has been must study for anyone interested in creating or supporting a government, dictatorial or democratic, it doing yoeman work for all varieties. But now Montesquieu's classic has been hurried into late Twentieth-Century modernity by the curious Castroite and Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez Frias. For Mr. Chavez, and his babbling coterie of marxists, has just force fed the Venzuelans a "new" constitution which claims to improve, inter alia, on the French baron's division of government into three branches, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, by adding two more branches, Moral and Electoral (sic). The reader -- Chavez's sans culottes are functionally illiterate -- can doubtless puncture these pretensions for himself. Even so, it is a shame that Montesquieu is not present to do so. In his absence, however, the reader will find the excellent work of Prof. Carrithers -- Kiplingesque with prefaces, introductory notes and appendices -- invaluable should he be disposed to investigate the "new" Venezuelan Constitution.