Political Theory Books - Page 3

Theory of Justice

John Rawls

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Comic reviews 5 out of 5 stars.
21 of 29 people found this review helpful.

I suppose one of the great attributes of the internet is that it allows the juxtaposition of the good, the bad and the ugly. Where else could one find reviews of one of the twentieth century's towering works that variously describe it as a recipe for a police state, an incitement to theft, or as written by someone with no understanding of philosophy (my personal favourite - thanks Adrian!)

Editorial Review:

Since it appeared in 1971, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has become a classic. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original book.

Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition--justice as fairness--and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. "Each person," writes Rawls, "possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override." Advancing the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Lincoln, Rawls's theory is as powerful today as it was when first published.

World Politics: Trends and Transformation

Charles W. Kegley, Eugene R. Wittkopf

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Well Done 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I took an international relations course awhile ago, and this book was part of the required reading. While it does not provide a complete overview of IR, it does a very good job at the intro level. Specifically, the text does a very thorough job of adressing globalization, the global south, and introductory political economy. I would suggest buying this book and then reading the works of the political scientists upon which much of the theory is based (Mearsheimer, Nye, Waltz, Angell, Doyle, Morganthau, Carr, etc.)

verbose, vague, and biased 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The textbook provides an overview of basic theories, issues, and processes in the global system. However the chapters do not show very well how their subject matter relates to topics in the rest of the book.
The text is both verbose and vague. Definitions of terms given are of limited value because they are so technical and wordy. Conflicting theories are not examined very critically and are hidden among the fluff of speculation about the future and lists of facts, figures, and events too numerous to be of impact. Data is listed but not effectively interpreted. Frequently there will be pages in which only a few sentences are actually important. The challenge is seeing which paragraphs can be skipped.
The book is particularly good on great power rivalries and global conflicts. On political economy it is ambitious but cannot go into enough detail because it doesn't expect students to have taken economics. The chapters on NGOs and IGOs do not succeed at explaining what they actually do.
Although realist views are discussed, the book is ambitious in pushing for liberal views even without supporting evidence. It devotes much time to them but does not manage to be convincing. The book HATES Bush for rejecting multilateralism and does not hesitate to criticize him or other leaders
Most likely readers are forced to buy textbook for a class. It will induce sleep. Sifting through the material, not the material itself is the challenge.

Editorial Review:

This best-selling introduction to international relations features the most recent scholarship and up-to-date analysis of world events-framed by a highly accessible introduction to theory-in the only four-color book in its market.

Democracy in America

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Get the Library of America Edition 2 out of 5 stars.
14 of 16 people found this review helpful.

This 170-year-old book by a young French aristocrat remains one of the most frequently quoted analyses of what Toqueville famously calls America's "habits of the heart."

If you're interested in reading Toqueville for yourself and not through the eyes of some commentator, what version should you get?

Instead of this one, I recommend the Library of America edition Tocqueville: Democracy in America (Library of America). First, the translation by Arthur Goldhammer is smoother and more comprehensible, without informality or paraphrase. Second, the Goldhammer translation is not burdened by political leanings or excessively scholarly apparatus. Third--and not unimportant--the Library of America volume is smaller and easier to hold and provides a more pleasant reading experience.

Editorial Review:

When it was first published last year, Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop's new translation of Democracy in America was lauded in all quarters as the finest and most definitive edition of Tocqueville's classic thus far—complete with the most faithful and readable translation to date, impeccable annotations of unfamiliar references, and a masterful introduction placing the work and its author in the broader contexts of political philosophy and statesmanship. Mansfield and Winthrop's astonishing efforts have not only captured the elegance, subtlety, and profundity of Tocqueville's original, but also give us some sense of how very essential this masterpiece continues to be.

The Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings: Marx, Marat, Paine, Mao Tse-Tung, Gandhi and Others (Dover Thrift Editions)

Bob Blaisdell, Marx, Gandhi

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Absurd? I don't think so... 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The reviewer "Scott" argues that the Communist Manifesto is "degrading", and I'd like to know exactly "for whom/what"? Sounds like Scott is either a boss who'd like to see the revival of the "Golden Age of Capitalism" (the Industrial Revolution, which included sub-living wages, child labor, forced overtime, 12-15 hour days, no worker's rights, etc.). Or, more likely, he has never read the Communist Manifesto, which contains within it nothing that is degrading for the working and poor classes, but is in fact a dignifying and uplifting rally-cry for the working class.

Only a person that has never read the Communist Manifesto, or a person belonging to the priveleged class, could argue, honestly, that the Manifesto was degrading. Scott, you should be ashamed.

(By the way, Marx was not the rabid anti-capitalist, pro-Statist, everyone thinks he was - he was in fact the rightful heir to the Paine, Smith, Mill, etc. He followed their arguments to their logical conclusions, and he could not reject history and what capitalism had become by his time. As had been said about communism time and time again, capitalism "is a great idea but doesn't work" - not in the long run, not for the working class. Rather, capitalism had went from liberating people in the 17th and 18th centuries to enslaving them in the 19th and 20th - and 21st - centuries. Marx, like the "founding fathers" of America, had realised that CERTAINLY man needs land/resources to be free, but unlike the founding fathers he was around to see that monopolies were an inevitability in capitalism, and that the population would grow too large for there to be enough land and resources to go around without SHARING. "Private property" had become, by this time, a means of forcing latecomers into service in exchange for table scraps. And of course, the capitalists had abandoned their belief in liberty and human welfare and had become dependent upon the State to protect their hordes of unused/horded wealth and property. Forget the fact that they didn't need all the land and resources they "owned legally", and forget the fact that there were people that DID need it bud didn't have it, and forget the fact that the choice between starvation and work is NOT "freedom" but coercion - forget all this. What became important for the capitalists long before socialism, anarchism, and communism became attractive alternatives to capitalism was not people, but profit. Marx simply was more of a libertarian than the capitalists of his day.)

Editorial Review:

This concise anthology presents a broad selection of writings by leading revolutionary figures of the world. Spanning three centuries, the works include such milestone documents as the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), and The Communist Manifesto (1848). Also included are writings by the Russian revolutionaries Lenin and Trotsky; Marat and Danton of the French Revolution; in addition to selections by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Tom Paine, Emma Goldman, Mohandas Gandhi, Mao Tse-tung, and others. An essential collection for anyone interested in the issues, ideas, and history of the major revolutions of modern times, this book will also find an eager audience among students. Dover original selection of writings from standard editions.

Thomas Paine : Collected Writings : Common Sense / The Crisis / Rights of Man / The Age of Reason / Pamphlets, Articles, and Letters (Library of America)

Thomas Paine

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Remember our origins 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is an excellent collection of the evident, palpable reasons for self-rule, written for the common folk of the time in an inspiring style. Now more than ever we need to revisit the foundations of self-rule and individual rights. Freedom is not easy; it is hard. Freedom is not safe; it is dangerous. RS

Still as Important and Current as it was 225 years ago, One of the 10 most important books of all time! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Reading Paine is as important today as it has been for over 200 years. Taxes,social inequality's or pure politics can all be found here in an easily readable and relevant format. This collection of writing's include letters and commentary and some events that history has now sidelined, As it just may happen after you read Common Sense or The Age of Reason you may find your appetite for more satisfied by these insightful inclusions. Right or Left if you believe in America and want to see the path it was meant to take read this book,then grab on to a piece of the reins of power and make it work!

Editorial Review:

Paine was the impassioned democratic voice of the Age of Revolution, and this volume brings together his best-known works--"Common Sense," "The American Crisis," "Rights of Man," "The Age of Reason," along with a selection of letters, articles and pamphlets that emphasizes Paine's American years.

Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

Giorgio Agamben

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The work of Giorgio Agamben, one of Italy’s most important and original philosophers, has been based on an uncommon erudition in classical traditions of philosophy and rhetoric, the grammarians of late antiquity, Christian theology, and modern philosophy. Recently, Agamben has begun to direct his thinking to the constitution of the social and to some concrete, ethico-political conclusions concerning the state of society today, and the place of the individual within it.

In Homo Sacer, Agamben aims to connect the problem of pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, metaphysical, and cultural grounding. Taking his cue from Foucault’s fragmentary analysis of biopolitics, Agamben probes with great breadth, intensity, and acuteness the covert or implicit presence of an idea of biopolitics in the history of traditional political theory. He argues that from the earliest treatises of political theory, notably in Aristotle’s notion of man as a political animal, and throughout the history of Western thinking about sovereignty (whether of the king or the state), a notion of sovereignty as power over “life” is implicit.

The reason it remains merely implicit has to do, according to Agamben, with the way the sacred, or the idea of sacrality, becomes indissociable from the idea of sovereignty. Drawing upon Carl Schmitt’s idea of the sovereign’s status as the exception to the rules he safeguards, and on anthropological research that reveals the close interlinking of the sacred and the taboo, Agamben defines the sacred person as one who can be killed and yet not sacrificed—a paradox he sees as operative in the status of the modern individual living in a system that exerts control over the collective “naked life” of all individuals.

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Man, Animal -- Manimal! 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This essay was Rousseaus's submission to the Academy of Dijon contest, entitled, "Has the progress of the arts and sciences contributed more to the corruption or purification of morals?".

This text is his story about Nature, and Society, and the scandal that happens when people come together, build, divide, dance, sing, and compare themselves with one another. In many ways, it is his answer to the problem of evil.

Natural man is, in many ways, good, because his needs are immediately felt and immediately fulfilled. Social man begins to compete, to hoard, and to use cunning to enslave his fellows, to gain their esteem, take their property, and sometimes their lives.

His picture of the natural man is half what we think of an "animal" and half the "human" that we recognize in ourselves. He shifts his description as the flow of arguement dictates. The habitual provocateur, Rousseau - watch him!

In a way, he is rewriting the Christian "Creation Myth". In his version, evil does not originate at that moment when man eats the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" --to "be like God"; it happens when Adam wants a better apple than Eve's got for herself. Before society develops as we know it, Adam would have been fine with just a pear.

Editorial Review:

In Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau argues that inequalities of rank, wealth, and power are the inevitable result of the civilizing process. His sweeping account of humanity's social and political development epitomizes the innovative boldness of the Enlightenment, and it is one of the most provocative and influential works of the eighteenth century. This new translation by prize-winning translator Franklin Philip includes all of Rousseau's own notes, and Patrick Coleman's introduction builds on recent key scholarship, considering particularly the relationship between political and aesthetic thought.

The Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration (Dover Thrift Editions)

John Locke

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Most Representative Thinker in Anglo-American Tradition 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

John Locke (1632-1704) wrote "Second Treatise of Government" in 1690, it was the main political philosophical source that our "Founding Fathers" went to in writing the "Declaration of Independence" and in forming our government. I think you should know something of Locke to understand what influenced his thinking. His father was a small landowner, attorney, Puritan and his political sympathies were with the Cromwell Parliament. Like Hobbes, Locke attended Oxford Univ. and did not think much about the curriculum or his professors. Most of his education came from reading books in the Univ. library. Renee Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton's writings greatly influenced Locke. Like Hobbes, he took a tutoring job teaching the son of the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, and traveled Europe. His friendship with the Earl was beneficial in obtaining government appointments. During the political unrest in England, (1679-83) he fled to Holland because his liberal notions put him at odds with the government.

Locke writes the "Second Treatise of Government" to justify the Revolt of 1688 and the ascension of William of Orange to the English throne. The book argues against two lines of absolutist ideas. The first is Sir Robert Filmer's "patriarchal theory of divine right of kings; secondly, Hobbes argument for the sovereign's absolute power in his book "Leviathan." Locke argues that government emanates from the people. Locke's treatise rests like other political writings on its interpretation of human nature. He sees our nature opposite the way Hobbes did, decent and not as selfish or competitive. Man is more inclined to join society through reason and not fear. Man prefers stability to change.

His very important contribution to "law of nature" theory was his bias toward individualism. In state of nature, before government, men were free independent, equal enjoying inalienable rights "chief among them being life, liberty, and property." Where have you read that before? Property rights receive much attention in this treatise. Locke argues that government based on consent of man can still preserve freedom independence and equality.

His political writing had immediate influence in the world and influenced our founding fathers in their struggle against tyranny. He is an excellent writer and his theories are easy to understand by the laymen. As a graduate student of political philosophy, I recommend if you have an interest in politics, philosophy, or government then you must read Locke's "Second Treatise of Government"

Editorial Review:

In The Second Treatise of Government, John Locke answered two objectives: to refute the concept of the monarchy's divine right and to establish a theory reconciling civil liberties with political order. His Letter Concerning Toleration rests on the same basic principles as his political theory; Locke's main argument for toleration is a corollary of his theory of the nature of civil society. The basis of social and political philosophy for generations, these works laid the foundation of the modern democratic state in England and abroad. Their enduring importance makes them essential reading for students of philosophy, history, and political science. Unabridged republication of a standard edition.

On Liberty and Other Essays (Oxford World's Classics)

John Stuart Mill

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Triumph of the individual 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This Oxford collection of four definitive essays by John Stuart Mill, arguably the most famous Victorian writer who could be called a philosopher, gives an excellent profile of a rigorous social reformer and political thinker. The subjects of these essays--liberty, utilitarianism, government, and women's rights--are interrelated to the extent that they reveal a man with a sharp sense of history and its impact on the methods and mores of contemporary society. Mill, after all, was of Charles Dickens's generation and therefore witnessed an era in which the British crown was inclined to manifest its power through tyranny in its efforts to maintain a costly worldwide empire.

Mill's basic concern is liberty, both social and civil. He identifies a difference between freedom and liberty--freedom is the state of being free, while liberty is the freedom that a government or governing body grants its people. Briefly a member of Parliament (the workings of which are described in great detail in "Representative Government") and heavily informed and influenced by Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," Mill recognized that the most important (and perhaps the only proper) function of a government is to protect the liberties of its citizens. However, people generally get the form of government they deserve; if laws they allow to go unchecked become the tools of despotic powers, they have only their own ignorance or indolence to blame.

An enumeration of Mill's finer points may suffice as a summary of his ideas:

1. Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are essential rights of man. You don't have to accept as true what other people say, but let them say it because there's always the chance that they're right and you're wrong. Mill points out that even the Roman Catholic Church, most intolerant of religions (his words, not mine), allows a "devil's advocate" to offer repudiative evidence before it canonizes a new saint. He notes instances in which religious intolerance still rears its ugly head in the British Empire of his day.

2. Christianity does not have a monopoly on moral authority; literary history gives evidence of this.

3. Individuality should be fostered so that new ideas may flourish, but society, specifically the middle class, establishes the normative values that unfortunately tend to stifle individuality. You have an unlimited right to your opinion, but you are free to act only so far as you do not harm or molest others. Long before Orwell, Mill had the insight that institutional deprivation of liberty is effectively suppression of thought, for how can someone train himself to think independently when doing so could lead to persecution for heresy or treason?

4. State-sponsored education should restrict itself to teaching scientifically provable or reliably documented facts rather than push religious or political agenda. When or if polemical issues are raised, arguments for and against are to be presented as opinions so that students may draw their own conclusions.

5. The utilitarian principle states that actions that promote happiness (in its most obvious form, pleasure) are "right" and those that reduce happiness are "wrong"--in other words, utilitarianism is the opposite of puritanism. Consider how much better it is to be a dissatisfied human being than a satisfied pig, because the human has the potential for so much more happiness than the pig, whose breadth of experience is contained entirely between the trough and the slaughterhouse, could ever know.

6. Women deserve the same rights as men because the social and mental limitations attributed to women are for the most part a male-conceived artifice. Chivalry is a fallacy.

And so on. I'm not sure if it's correct to call Mill a libertarian in modern terms, but he was certainly concerned with the issues with which modern libertarians are concerned. Much of his discourse is relevant to today's world, even though he often draws upon the past for contrast in order to make his conclusions, the implication being that improvement comes with increased knowledge and experience. Anyone who is interested in nineteenth-century thought on democracy and individualism will find much to ponder in Mill's eloquence.

Editorial Review:

This edition contains four essays--"On Liberty," "Utilitarianism," "Considerations on Representative Government," and "The Subjection of Women"--never before presented in one volume. Contrary to the muddled eclectic of traditional interpretations, Mill emerges as a consistent and strikingly modern thinker, no less ambitious than Marx.

Tocqueville: Democracy in America (Library of America)

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Editorial Review:

Alexis de Tocqueville, a young aristocratic French lawyer, came to the United States in 1831 to study its penitentiary systems. His nine-month visit and subsequent reading and reflection resulted in Democracy in America (1835–40), a landmark masterpiece of political observation and analysis. Tocqueville vividly describes the unprecedented social equality he found in America and explores its implications for European society in the emerging modern era. His book provides enduring insight into the political consequences of widespread property ownership, the potential dangers to liberty inherent in majority rule, the importance of civil institutions in an individualistic culture dominated by the pursuit of material self-interest, and the vital role of religion in American life, while prophetically probing the deep differences between the free and slave states. The clear, fluid, and vigorous translation by Arthur Goldhammer is the first to fully capture Tocqueville’s achievements both as an accomplished literary stylist and as a profound political thinker.