Robert Wokler

Robert Lucien Wokler (6 December 1942 – 30 July 2006) was an Anglo-French historian who was a leading scholar of the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Enlightenment.

He was born in Auch, France, to Isaac and Ilona Wochiler, both war refugees; the parents were allowed entry to Switzerland several months later because they were accompanying an infant child.^[1] Many members of the family were victims of the Holocaust.^[2]

Robert Wokler would later move to Paris and San Francisco during his childhood. He entered the University of Chicago on a music scholarship but found an interest in political thought after meeting political philosopher Leo Strauss.^[3] He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1964, his master's from the London School of Economics in 1966, and DPhil from Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1968. John Plamenatz and Isaiah Berlin, both refugees themselves, served as his supervisors at Oxford and were significant influences. Wokler wrote his doctoral thesis on the thought of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a topic that would be a focus for much of his career.^[1] The Guardian writes: "He saw in the Enlightenment a profound response to experiences of religiously-inspired violence all too similar to the events of his own time; he believed that the Enlightenment's calls for toleration and personal freedom, and its opposition to sectarianism and fanaticism, remained urgently needed."^[3]

Beginning in 1971, he taught at the University of Manchester, becoming a reader in 1994. He held fellowships at Sidney Sussex and Trinity colleges at the University of Cambridge. At Trinity he was close to Ralph Leigh and assisted with his edition of Rousseau's correspondence. Wokler spent his final years before an early retirement in 1988 visiting institutes for advanced research at Canberra, Princeton, Uppsala and Budapest. Afterwards he took posts at Exeter, the Central European University in Budapest, the European University Institute in Florence and a senior lectureship at Yale.^[1][2] He died of cancer in Cambridge in 2006, aged sixty-three.^[4]

A number of works from his collection on Rousseau and Diderot are held by the University of Cambridge.^[5]

Wokler's works include Man and society: political and social theories from Machiavelli to Marx (1992), Rousseau: a very short introduction (1995), Rousseau and Liberty (1998), Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century (1998), The Enlightenment: the nation-state and the primal patricide of modernity (1998), and Rousseau, the Age of Enlightenment, and Their Legacies (2012), a collection of essays.

Source:^[6]

• Rousseau, the Age of Enlightenment, and Their Legacies, B. Garsten (ed.), intro. by C. Brooke, Princeton: Princeton University Press (2012), 400pp.
• Rousseau on Society, Politics, Music and Language: An Historical Interpretation of his Early Writings, New York: Garland (1987), 520pp.
• Rousseau, in the ‘Past Master’ series, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, reissued 1996, 132pp.; revised, expanded and illustrated edition for the ‘Very Short Introduction’ series, 2001, 172pp.; German translation by Michaela Rehm, Freiburg: Herder, 1999, 186pp.; Japanese translation by Shuji Yamamoto, Osaka: Koyo Shobo, 2000, 215pp.; Italian translation by Simona Ferlini, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001, 165pp.; Korean translation by Sigongsa Co. Ltd., Seoul: Eric Yang Agency, 2001, 224pp.; Hungarian, Portuguese and Turkish translations in progress.
• ‘Rameau, Rousseau and the Essai sur l’origine des langues’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century CXVII (1974) pp. 179–238 (listed by Wokler as a monograph).
• ‘The influence of Diderot on the political theory of Rousseau’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century CXXXII (1975) pp. 55–111 (listed by Wokler as a monograph).

• Correspondance complète de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, édition critique établie par R.A. Leigh, revue par Robert Wokler (avec Janet Laming), tome XLVII, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation (1988), 319pp.
• Correspondance complète de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, R.A. Leigh (ed.), revue par Robert Wokler (avec Janet Laming), tome XLVIII, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation (1988), 277pp.
• Correspondance complète de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, R.A. Leigh (ed.), revue par Robert Wokler (avec Janet Laming), tome XLIX, including ‘avertissement’, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation (1989), 328pp.
• Diderot's Political Writings with J.H. Mason (trans. and ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1992), 218pp.
• Man and Society, by John Plamenatz, 3 vols., a new edition, expanded and revised by M.E. Plamenatz and R. Wokler, vol. I: From the Middle Ages to Locke, London: Longmans (1992) reprinted 1993, 1996, 408pp.
• Man and Society, by John Plamenatz, a new edition, expanded and revised by M. E. Plamenatz and R. Wokler, vol. II: From Montesquieu to the Early Socialists, London: Longmans (1992) reprinted 1993, 398pp.
• Man and Society, by John Plamenatz, a new edition, expanded and revised by M.E. Plamenatz and R. Wokler, vol. III: Hegel, Marx and Engels, and the Idea of Progress, London: Longmans (1992) reprinted 1993, 1996, 375pp.

• Rousseau and the Eighteenth Century. Essays in memory of R.A. Leigh, M. Hobson, J. Leigh and R. Wokler (eds.) Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation (1992), 446pp.
• Inventing Human Science with C. Fox and R. Porter (eds.) Berkeley: University of California Press (1995), 386pp.
• Rousseau and Liberty, R. Wokler (ed.) Manchester: Manchester University Press (1995), 299pp.
• The Enlightenment and Modernity with N. Geras (eds.) New York: Macmillan and St Martin's Press (2000), 232pp.
• Isaiah Berlin's Counter-Enlightenment with J. Mali (eds.) (including Wokler's own chapter on ‘Isaiah Berlin's Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment’), Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 93, part. 5, March 2004, 196pp.
• The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, with M. Goldie (eds.) (including Wokler's own chapter on ‘Ideology and the Origins of Social Science’) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2006) ca 919pp.

• ‘Rousseau's Perfectibilian Libertarianism’, in A. Ryan (ed.) The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1979) 20pp.
• ‘Rousseau on Rameau and Revolution’, in R.F. Brissenden and J.C. Eade (eds.) Studies in the Eighteenth Century, Canberra: Australian National University Press (1979) 33pp.
• ‘The Discours sur les sciences et les arts and its offspring: Rousseau in Reply to his Critics’, in S. Harvey, M. Hobson, et al (eds.) Reappraisals of Rousseau, Studies in honour of R A Leigh, Manchester: Manchester University Press (1980) 29pp.
• ‘L’Essai sur l’origine des langues en tant que fragment du Discours sur l’inégalité: Rousseau et ses ‘mauvais’ interprètes’, in M. Launay (ed.) Rousseau et Voltaire en 1978, (Actes du Colloque international de Nice, juin 1978) Geneva: Slatkine (1981) 25pp.
• ‘From the Orang-utan to the Vampire: Towards an Anthropology of Rousseau’ (with C. Frayling)’, in R.A. Leigh (ed.) Rousseau after Two Hundred Years: Proceedings of the Cambridge Bicentennial Colloquium, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1982) 21pp.
• ‘Rousseau and Marx’, in D. Miller and L. Siedentop (eds.) The Nature of Political Theory: Essays in Honour of John Plamenatz, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1983) 29pp.
• ‘Rousseau’, in Political Thought from Plato to Nato, London: Ariel Books/British Broadcasting Corporation (1984) 15pp.
• ‘Rousseau's Two Concepts of Liberty’, in G. Feaver and F. Rosen (eds.) Lives, Liberties and the Public Good, London: Macmillan (1987) 40pp.
• ‘Saint-Simon and the Passage from Political to Social Science’, in Anthony Pagden (ed.) The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1987) 17pp.
• ‘Our Illusory Chains; Rousseau's Images of Bondage and Freedom’, in M. Cranston and L.C. Boralevi (eds.) Culture et politique, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (1988) 10pp.
• ‘Natural Law and the Meaning of Rousseau's Political Thought’, in G. Barber, C. Courtney and D. Gilson (eds.) Enlightenment Essays in Memory of Robert Shackleton, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation (1988) 18pp.
• ‘From Apes to Races in the Scottish Enlightenment: Kames and Monboddo on the History of Man’, in P. Jones (ed.) Science and Philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh: John Donald (1989) 18pp.
• ‘Preparing the definitive edition of the Correspondance de Rousseau’, in Rousseau and the Eighteenth Century, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution (1992) 19pp.
• ‘Democracy's Mythical Ordeals: The Promethean and Procrustean Paths to Popular Self-rule’, in M. Moran and G. Parry (eds.) Democracy and Democratization, Oxford: Routledge (1993) 22pp.
• ‘Taking stock of the Leigh edition of the Correspondance de Rousseau’, Proceedings of the 1991 Bristol Congress of the Enlightenment, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation (1993) 4pp.
• ‘Hegel's Rousseau: the General Will and Civil Society’, Deutscher Idealismus, (papers presented at a Symposium on German Idealism in November 1991) Göteborg: Arachne (1993) 38pp.
• ‘Projecting the Enlightenment’, in J. Horton and S. Mendus (eds.) After MacIntyre, Cambridge: Polity Press (1994) 19pp.
• ‘The Nexus of Animal and Rational: Sociobiology, Language and the Enlightenment Study of Apes’, in S. Maasen, E. Mendelsohn and P. Weingart (eds.) Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors, Sociology of the Sciences, A Yearbook, Vol. XVIII (1994), 22pp.
• ‘Enlightening Apes: Eighteenth-Century Speculation and Current Experiments on Linguistic Competence’, Ape/Man, Proceedings of the 1993 Leiden Pithecanthropus Centennial, Leiden (1995), 14pp.
• ‘Anthropology and conjectural history in the Enlightenment’, in Inventing Human Science, (1995) 21pp.
• ‘The Enlightenment Science of Politics’, in Inventing Human Science, (1995) 23pp.
• ‘Rousseau and his critics on the fanciful liberties we have lost’, in Rousseau and Liberty, (1995) 22pp.
• ‘Regressing towards post-modernity’, in Rousseau and Criticism, (Proceedings of North American Rousseau Society Colloquium of 1993), Trent (Ontario) (1996) 12pp.
• ‘Deconstructing the Self on the Wild Side’, in T. O’Hagan (ed.) Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Sources of the Self, London (Avebury) (1997) 14pp.
• ‘Dr Besterman, I presume’, in U. Kölving and C.Merveaud (eds.) Voltaire et ses combats, Vol. 1. Oxford (The Voltaire Foundation) (1997) 16pp.
• ‘The Enlightenment and the French Revolutionary Birth Pangs of Modernity’, in L. Magnusson, B. Wittrock and J. Heilbron (eds.) The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity: Conceptual Change in Context, 1750–1850, Sociology of the Sciences, A Yearbook, Vol. XX (1998), 26pp.
• ‘The Enlightenment, the nation-state and the primal patricide of modernity’, Discussion paper series no. 46 of the Collegium Budapest, 1999, adapted as Wokler's own contribution to The Enlightenment and Modernity, 28pp.
• ‘Multiculturalism and ethnic cleansing in the Enlightenment’, in O.P. Grell and R. Porter (eds.) Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2000) 17pp.
• ‘The Enlightenment Project on the eve of the Holocaust’, in B. Sträth (ed.) Enlightenment and Genocide, Contradictions of Modernity, Brussels: Presses Universitaires Européennes (2000) 21pp.
• ‘The professoriate of political thought in England since 1914: a tale of three chairs’, in D. Castiglione and I. Hampsher-Monk (eds.), The History of Political Thought in National Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2001) 26pp.
• ‘Ancient Postmodernism in the Philosophy of Rousseau’, adapted from Wokler's contribution to Pensée libre, no. 8, in P. Riley (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, New York: Cambridge University Press (2001) 26pp.
• ‘Repatriating modernity's alleged debts to the Enlightenment: French Revolutionary social science and the genesis of the nation-state’, in P. Joyce (ed.) The Social in Question, London: Routledge (2002) 19pp.
• ‘Political Modernity's Critical Juncture in the Course of the French Revolution’, in N. Witoszek and L. Trägårdh (eds.) Culture and Crisis: The Case of Germany and Sweden, New York and Oxford: Berghan Books (2002) 17pp.
• ‘Isaiah Berlin's Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment’, in J. Mali and R. Wokler (eds.) Isaiah Berlin's Counter-Enlightenment, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 93, part. 5, March 2004, 19pp.
• ‘Ideology and the Origins of Social Science’, in M. Goldie and R. Wokler (eds.) The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2004) 23pp.

• ‘Tyson and Buffon on the orang-utan’, Studies on Voltaire (1976), CLV: 2301–2319.
• ‘L’orango e l’uomo secondo Tyson e Buffon’, (expanded version and in part Wokler's own translation of ‘Tyson and Buffon’, as above) Ethos (1977) V: 20pp.
• ‘Perfectible apes in decadent cultures: Rousseau's anthropology revisited’, Daedalus (1978) (Summer), (special issue on Rousseau for our Time) 107–134.
• ‘The ape debates in Enlightenment anthropology’, Studies on Voltaire (1980) CXCII: 1164–1175.
• ‘A reply to Charvet: Rousseau and the perfectibility of man’, History of Political Thought (1980) I.i (Spring): 81–90.
• ‘Rousseau e Marx’, (an amended and expanded translation, on which Wokler collaborated, of ‘Rousseau and Marx’, as above), Bollettino di Storia della filosofia (1987) March: 33pp.

• ‘La Querelle des Bouffons and the Italian Liberation of France: a study of revolutionary foreplay’, published in a special issue (n.s. 11.i) of Eighteenth-Century Life (1987) 116–194.
• ‘From l’homme physique to l’homme moral and back: towards a history of enlightenment anthropology’, History of Human Sciences, (1993) 6.i (February): 121–138.
• ‘Rousseau's Pufendorf: natural law and the foundations of commercial society’, History of Political Thought (1994) XV: 373–402.
• ‘Ralph Alexander Leigh’, obituary notice, Proceedings of the British Academy, (1994) 84: 369–392.

• ‘Hegel versus Kant: from the Enlightenment project to post-modernity’, Australasian Studies in the History of Philosophy (1994) 2: 85–99.
• ‘Situating Rousseau in his world and ours’, the Arthur Wilson Memorial Lecture presented at Dartmouth College, January 1995, Social Science Information (1995) 34.4: 515–538.
• ‘Todorov's otherness’, New Literary History, (1996) 27.1: 43–57.
• ‘The French Revolutionary roots of political modernity in Hegel's philosophy, or the Enlightenment at dusk’, Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, (1997) 35: 71–89.
• ‘The Enlightenment and the French Revolutionary birth pangs of modernity’, Sociology of the Sciences, (1997) 35: 35–76.
• ‘Rousseau et la liberté’, Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997) XLII, 23pp.
• ‘The Enlightenment project and its critics’, Poznan Studies (1998) 58 (issue entitled The Postmodernist critique of the project of Enlightenment) 13–31.
• ‘Contextualizing Hegel's phenomenology of the French Revolution and the terror’, Political Theory, (1998) 26.1: 33–55.
• ‘The subtextual reincarnation of Voltaire and Rousseau’, The American Scholar (1998) 67 (Spring): 55–64.
• ‘Pistols for two and coffee for one: rekindling Voltaire's and Rousseau's quarrel in footnotes’, Studies on Voltaire, (1998) CCCLXII: 1–10.
• ‘The Enlightenment project as betrayed by modernity’, History of European Ideas, (1998) 24.4–5: 301.
• ‘The manuscript authority of political thoughts’, History of Political Thought, (1999) XX.1 (Essays presented to J.H. Burns), 107–124.
• ‘Ernst Cassirer's Enlightenment: an exchange with Bruce Mazlish’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, (2000) 29: 335–348.
• ‘From the moral and political sciences to the sciences of society by way of the French Revolution’, Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik, (2000) 8: 33–47.
• ‘Ancient Postmodernism in the Philosophy of Rousseau’, Pensée Libre, (2001) 8, 24pp.
• ‘Der besondere Charakter der ländlichen Aufklärung des Nordens’, The Cultural Construction of Norden, review essay of Bo Stråth et al (eds.), in Bernd Henningsen, ed. Wahlverwandtschaft, 9, Das Projekt Norden: Essays zur Konstruktion einer europäischen Region (2002) 7pp.
• ‘Isaiah Berlin's Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment’, Jewish Studies Yearbook, Central European University, (2002) 2, 9pp.
• ‘Rousseau's reading of the book of genesis and the theology of commercial society’, Modern Intellectual History, (2006) 3: 85–94.

• ‘Perfectibility of Man’, in W. F. Bynum and R. Porter (eds.) Dictionary of the History of Science, London: Macmillan (1981) 1p.
• ‘Introduction and The Enlightenment’, in M.A. Riff (ed.) Dictionary of Political Ideologies, Manchester: Manchester University Press 18pp.
• ‘Sixteen contributions (‘America’, ‘Civilization’, ‘Democracy’, ‘Liberalism’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Negroes’, ‘Optimism’, ‘Patriotism’, ‘The people’, ‘Physiocracy’, ‘Politeness’, ‘Primitivism’, ‘Progress’, ‘Property’, ‘Rights’, ‘Savagery’)’, in R. Porter and J. Yolton (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment, Oxford: Blackwell (1990).
• ‘Diderot’, in Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia, New York: Garland (1996) 8pp.
• ‘Edward Tyson, Rousseau and Monboddo’, in F. Spencer (ed.) History of Physical Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, New York: Garland (1996) 16pp.
• ‘Rousseau’, in T. Mautner (ed.) Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell (1996) 2pp.
• ‘Two contributions (‘Race’, ‘Savagery’)’, in J. Black and R. Porter (eds.) A Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century World History, Oxford: Blackwell (1996) 2pp.
• ‘Four contributions (‘Buffon’, ‘Diderot’, ‘Enlightenment, Continental’ and ‘Monboddo’)’, in E. Craig (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, London: Routledge (1998).
• ‘Voltaire’ and ‘Rousseau’, in R.L. Arrington (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophers, Oxford: Blackwell (1999).
• ‘Two articles (‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau’ and ‘The Social Contract’)’, in Adam and Jessica Kuper (eds.) The Social Science Encyclopedia, London: Routledge (2004).
• ‘The Enlightenment’, in Dinah L. Shelton (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Macmillan: New York (2005).

• ‘On the Death of Malcolm X’, Clare Market Review, LXII.i (1966), 4 pp.
• ‘On the Los Angeles Race Riots’, Clare Market Review, LXII.ii (1966), 4 pp.
• ‘Rousseau’s Politics’, Government and Opposition, VII.iv (1973), 5 pp.
• Review of several books on Rousseau, Philosophical Quarterly, XXIV (1974), 4 pp.
• ‘Rousseau’s Paradox’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 20 September 1974, 1 p. (1,500 words)
• Review article of two books on Burke, Political Studies, XXIV.iv (1974), 5 pp.
• ‘The analogies of Nature’ (review of A. Verri, Lord Monboddo. dalla metafisica all’antropologia), Times Literary Supplement, 11 March 1977, 2 pp. (2,800 words)
• ‘The Enlightenment and the Revolution: Some Notes on Norman Hampson’s Variations on a Theme by Robert Darnton’, British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Newsletter, XIII (1977), 4 pp.
• ‘The very rhythm of Rousseau’, Times Literary Supplement, 19 August 1977, 1 p. (1,700 words)
• ‘The Enlightenment Hostilities of Voltaire and Rousseau’ (feature article), Times Higher Education Supplement, 29 September 1978, 2 pp. (3,800 words)
• ‘Descending into paranoia’ (review of three volumes of R.A. Leigh (ed.), Correspondance complète de Rousseau), Times Literary Supplement, 6 February 1981, 1 p. (3,100 words)
• ‘The Apes and Us’ (review of thirteen books on sociobiology and ethology), Quarto, XV (March 1981), 3 pp. (4,900 words)
• ‘The great dissimulator’ (review of H.C. Mansfield, Jr., Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders), Times Higher Education Supplement, 10 April 1981, 1 p. (1,300 words)
• ‘Eminently enlightened’ (review of H. Mason, Voltaire), Times Literary Supplement, 16 October 1981, 1 p. (1,000 words)
• ‘Adrift in a gene pool’ (review of P. Singer, The Expanding Circle: ethics and sociobiology), Times Higher Education Supplement, 2 February 1982, 1 p. (1,000 words)
• ‘A polity of nature’ (review of H. Howard, Darwin, and W. George, Darwin), Times Higher Education Supplement, 2 July 1982, 1 p. (1,000 words)
• ‘Critical dialectic’ (review of S. Rose (ed.), Against Biological Determinism and Towards a Liberatory Biology), Times Higher Education Supplement, 30 July 1982, 1 p. (1,000 words)
• ‘Natural slavery’ (review of A. Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man), Times Higher Education Supplement, 11 February 1983, 1 p. (1,200 words)
• ‘Balance of life’ (review of M. Barthelemy Madaule, Lamarck the Mythical Precursor), Times Higher Education Supplement, 25 March 1983, 1 p. (1,400 words)
• ‘The vagabondage of the philosophe’ (review of R.A. Leigh (ed.), Correspondance complète de Rousseau, and M. Cranston, Jean Jacques), Times Literary Supplement, 2 September 1983, 2 pp. (3,700 words)
• ‘Founding a school for statesmanship’ (review of S. Collini, D. Winch, and J. Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics), Times Higher Education Supplement, 9 March 1984, 1 p. (2,800 words)
• ‘Look to nature’ (review of R. Brown, The Nature of Social Laws), Times Higher Education Supplement, 30 November 1984, 1 p. (1,700 words)
• Obituary notice for R.A. Leigh, The Daily Telegraph, 2 January 1988, 1 p. (800 words)
• Review article of J. Miller, Rousseau: Dreamer of Democracy, Journal of Modern History, LXI.2 (June 1989), 2 pp.
• ‘Liberty, egality and fratricide’ (‘Democracy and Terror in the French Revolution’), a feature article published in the Times Higher Education Supplement, 14 July 1989, 2 pp. (3000 words)
• ‘Introduction’ to A Catalogue of Saint Simon and Saint Simonianism, Wickmere, Norfolk (Merrion Book Company), 1989, 4 pp. (1600 words)
• ‘Vagabondage’ (review of M. Cranston, The Noble Savage), New Statesman, 12 April 1991, 2 pp. (800 words)
• ‘Introduction’ to A Catalogue of John Wilkes, Wickmere, Norfolk (Merrion Book Company), 1991, 4 pp. (1500 words)
• ‘Prop forward’ (review of P.N. Furbank, Diderot: A Critical Biography), New Statesman, 8 May 1992, 1 p. (800 words)
• ‘Keeping it in the family’, review of P. Cavalieri and P. Singer (eds.) The Great Ape Project, Times Literary Supplement, 17 September 1993, reprinted in James Koobatian, The Thinking Reader, Belmont, Ca. (Wadsworth) 2002, 2 pp. (3000 words)
• Review article of Iain Hampsher-Monk, A History of Modern Political Thought, Political Studies, XLI.iv (1993), 2 pp. (700 words)
• ‘Introduction’ to A Catalogue of Benjamin Franklin, Wickmere, Norfolk (Merrion Book Company), 1994, 3 pp.
• ‘Singular Praise for a Pluralist’, review of John Gray, Isaiah Berlin, Times Higher Education Supplement, 3 March 1995, 1 p. (1700 words)
• Review article of Claude Galipeau, Isaiah Berlin's Liberalism, Political Studies, XLIII.iii (1995), 2 pp. (800 words)
• Review article of Yves Glaziou, Hobbes en France au XVIIIe siècle, History of European Ideas, 21.3 (1995), 2 pp. (1200 words)
• ‘Arguments for a deeper shade of green’, review of several works on ecology and environmental ethics, Times Literary Supplement, 8 September 1995, 1 pp. (1800 words)
• ‘Music and the moral voice’, review of volume V of the Pléiade Oeuvres complètes de Rousseau and of Michael O’Dea, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Music, Illusion and Desire, Times Literary Supplement, 3 May 1996, 2 pp. (3000 words)
• ‘Laying the Enlightenment to Rest’, review of John Gray, Enlightenment’s Wake, Government and Opposition, 32.1 (1997), 6 pp.
• Review of William Sewell, A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbé Sieyes and What is the Third Estate?, Contemporary Sociology, 26.2 (1997), 2 pp. (1200 words)
• Review of Norbert Waszek, The Scottish Enlightenment and Hegel’s Account of ‘Civil Society’, Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, 35 (1997), 2 pp.
• ‘A modern Candide’, review of Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin, and György Dalos, The Guest from the Future: Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin, Times Literary Supplement, 18 December 1998, 2 pp. (3200 words).
• Catalogue of a book exhibition commemorating Rousseau and Voltaire in the bicentenary year of their deaths (with D. Adams), John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, February 1978, 18 pp.
• Numerous book reviews on Rousseau, Burke, Bentham, Tocqueville, the Enlightenment, utopian socialism, the philosophy of history, the history of modern political thought, French political theory, 1500 1800, on the political thought of Jürgen Habermas, and modern republicanism, in Political Studies; on Shaftesbury, Rousseau and Kant, in Ethics; and on the philosophy of history in History.

• Goldie, Mark; Hampsher-Monk, Iain (Winter 2006). "In Memoriam: Robert Wokler's Enlightenment Project". History of Political Thought. 27 (4): 737–742. JSTOR 26222117.
• "Robert Wokler: Eloquent and highly regarded scholar of Rousseau and the Enlightenment". The Times. 3 August 2006. Retrieved 6 July 2023.