I’ve just said ‘no’ to four invitations to write – a working paper, a review, a review essay and a book chapter. All, in themselves, are interesting projects, but the books were too far from what I’m working on, the working paper would have meant writing something in a very different form to the way I want to write it, and the deadline for the book chapter – on a topic I really want to write on – just doesn’t work. I could probably have done all of them, but not without derailing other things. I have the history of territory book to finish, the Sloterdijk edited book is due at the end of the year, and there is another potential project, which is a one-off and not-to-miss opportunity.

I’ve been spending the day reading Richard Hooker’s Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, written in the late 16th century. I’d thought that it was just going to figure as a minor note somewhere in chapters 8 or 9, but there are some really important passages about the tying of sovereignty to a territory. The Cambridge history of political thought edition of the text just includes the preface and Books I and VIII, which are the most important passages, because much of the rest is made up of rather arcane theological disputations with the Puritans, but I’ve realised I’m going to have to work through the whole thing.