History of the State Books

Security, Territory, Population (Lectures at the College De France)

Michel Foucault

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Marking a major development in Foucault's thinking, this book derives from the lecture course which he gave at the Collège de France between January and April, 1978. Taking as his starting point the notion of "bio-power," introduced in his 1976 course Society Must be Defended, Foucault sets out to study the foundations of this new technology of power over population. Distinct from punitive, disciplinary systems, the mechanisms of power are here finely entwined with the technologies of security, and it is to 18th century developments of these technologies with which the first chapters of the book are concerned. By the fourth lecture however Foucault's attention turns, focusing on a history of "governmentality" from the first centuries of the Christian era to the emergence of the modern nation state. As Michel Sennelart explains in his afterword, the effect of this change of direction is to "shift the center of gravity of the lectures from the question of biopower to that of government, to such an extent that the former almost entirely eclipses the former ..." Consequently, in light of Foucault's later work, it is tempting to see these lectures as the moment of a radical turning point at which the transition to the problematic of the "government of self and others" would begin.

Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

Noam Chomsky, Peter Mitchell

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Total reviews: 87 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent understand without actually understanding 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I've read many Noam Chomsky books and this one is pretty good. Its just a assorted set of lectures and talks he has given. While his ability to be aware of so many facts about foreign policy is amazing his actual understanding can be sometimes limited. One example is when He talks of Nixon's fall from power and points out that Nixon did worse things then watergate. He mentions the bombing of cambodia which killed in his estimate about 150,000 people. The problem of course is that it is laughable that any president would be impeached for killing people in a war, even if it is a war crime. Noam Chomsky is brilliant but his idealism often obstructs an otherwise clear view of the world.

Editorial Review:

Understanding Power is a wide-ranging collection of transcribed and previously unpublished discussions and seminars (from 1989 to 1999) with sociopolitical analyst Noam Chomsky.

The chapters, each covering discrete sessions with Chomsky, arrive in a question-and-answer format that at times becomes delightfully contentious. Chomsky holds forth on such disparate topics as American third-party politics, the stifling of true dissent, the illusion of a muscular media, heavy-handed American imperialism (from Southeast Asia to Mexico), a dysfunctional and self-destructing United States political left, the gilding of the Kennedy and Carter administrations, and the impotent state of labor unions.

The relatively accessibility of Understanding Power is a welcome balance to Chomsky's often formidable scholarly writings. This is a book best taken in doses: a sort of bedside reader. --H. O'Billovitch

The Shield of Achilles

Philip Bobbitt

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Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The scope of Philip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles is breathtaking: the interplay, over the last six centuries, among war, jurisprudence, and the reshaping of countries ("states," in Bobbitt's vocabulary). Bobbitt posits that certain wars should be deemed epochal--that is, seen as composed of many "smaller" wars. For example, according to Bobbitt the epochal war of the 20th century began in 1914 and ended with the collapse of communism in 1990. These military affairs--and their subsequent "ultimate" peace agreements--have caused, each in their own way, revolutionary reconstructions of the idea and actuality of statehood and, following, of relationships between these various new entities. Of these reconstructions (including the princely state, the kingly state, and the nation-state), Bobbitt is most interested in the current incarnation, which he calls the market-state: one whose borders are scuffed and hazy at best (certainly compared to earlier territorial markers) and whose strengths, weaknesses, citizens, and enemies roam across cyberspace rather than plains and valleys. The Shield of Achilles is massive, erudite, and demanding--at once highly abstract and extremely detailed. There is about it an air of detached erudition, one noticeably free of the easy "decline and fall" hysteria too often present in contemporary historical analyses. --H. O'Billovich

The Republic and The Laws (Oxford World's Classics)

Cicero

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

"The Statesman's Handbook" 4 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Niall Rudd's edition of Cicero's two works The Republic and The Laws is the ideal handbook for the aspiring statesman; the accomplished politician should also be referred to use these two dialogues as a sort of political guide to draw from. In these two texts, the reader will find Cicero in all his eloquence artfully dicating the principles of what it means to be a good man and what it takes to create and consolidate states. This book will leave a lasting impression upon anyone who pans through the pages of these two very important works of the great Marcus Tullius Cicero. Also found here are the always insightful explanatory notes contained in the excellent series of Oxford World Classics; and the concise, scholarly introductions will without a doubt throw significant light upon the principles addressed throughout these timeless texts.

Editorial Review:

Cicero's The Republic is an impassioned plea for responsible government written just before the civil war that ended the Roman Republic in a dialogue following Plato. This is the first complete English translation of both works for over sixty years and features a lucid introduction, a table of dates, notes on the Roman constitution, and an index of names.

The King's Two Bodies

Ernst H. Kantorowicz

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Classic 4 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

"The King's Two Bodies," decades after its publication, is still one of the definitive works on political theology relating to kingship during the middle ages. The level of research and investigation Kantorowicz shows in this volume is truly impressive. If one wants to have a good understanding of some of the issues and developments regarding the place of the king, the idea of law, and so forth, this is a volume to read.

If there is any problem with the work, it may be its dryness. At times, it is quite easy for the text to blur in front of one's eyes as Kantorowicz delves into a (necessary) digression on a term or idea. However, this is not a fair critique - considering the type of analysis he is doing, and the sheer breadth of sources, one shouldn't expect a light read from this volume. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Medieval political thought/theology, or in Medieval notions of kingship.

Editorial Review:

In 1957 Ernst Kantorowicz published a book that would be the guide for generations of scholars through the arcane mysteries of medieval political theology. In The King's Two Bodies, Kantorowicz traces the historical problem posed by the "King's two bodies"--the body politic and the body natural--back to the Middle Ages and demonstrates, by placing the concept in its proper setting of medieval thought and political theory, how the early-modern Western monarchies gradually began to develop a "political theology."

Leviathan (Norton Critical Editions)

Thomas Hobbes

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Abridged, yet worthwhile. 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

What you first need to know is that the word "Authoritative" used in this edition refers to the fact that it utilizes several different manuscript versions to capture what Hobbes meant to convey. However, what is not mentioned is that this is an abridged version of the text. Much of parts III & IV are omitted. Which is a bit disappointing.

I gave this 5 stars because Hobbes himself deserves 5 stars for his provocative ideas. If you're familiar & comfortable with Shakespeare's language, you won't be put off by the cavalier spelling & grammar rules of Hobbes' era. This is not to say that Hobbes writes in blank verse (haha), but that the language is a bit arcane & takes some acclimatization.

Footnotes were, for the most part good - in the body of the text, foreign phrases were translated for those woefully ignorant (like me) of Latin & ancient Greek. However, in the post-ceding criticisms, this very positive practice was discontinued. As in, whole footnotes in Latin & German were not translated. So, get your browsers set to Babelfish, baby.

The accompanying criticisms are a mixed bag - some worth reading, some, not so much. They help elucidate some points - which is great for a casual reader like myself. Others just serve to annoy.

Eitherway, if you're looking for a definitive edition of the Leviathan, don't look here because you will miss about 1/3 of the actual text which Hobbes wrote down. If you want to skip the parts about theology & much of that which was tied into the Christian Commonwealth, then this is your edition.

Editorial Review:

Its appeal to the twentieth century lies not just in its elevation of politics to a science, but in its overriding concern for peace. Its argument that the state of nature, in which life is 'nasty, brutish and short (and patriarchal), is important, but so too is its systematic analysis of power, and its convincing apologia for the then emergent market society in which we still live.

Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford Political Theory)

Philip Pettit

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

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This is the first full-length presentation of a republican alternative to the liberal and communitarian theories that have dominated political philosophy in recent years. The latest addition to the acclaimed Oxford Political Theory series, Pettit's eloquent and compelling account opens with an examination of the traditional republican conception of freedom as non-domination, contrasting this with established negative and positive views of liberty.
The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of this conception, displays its many attractions, and makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at what the implementation of the ideal would require with regard to substantive policy-making, constitutional and democratic design, regulatory control and the relation between state and civil society. Prominent in this account is a novel concept of democracy, under which government is exposed to systematic contestation, and a vision of state-societal relations founded upon civility and trust.
Pettit's powerful and insightful new work offers not only a unified, theoretical overview of the many strands of republican ideas, but also a new and sophisticated perspective on studies in related fields including the history of ideas, jurisprudence, and criminology.

The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology

Mogens Herman Hansen

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Politics and human rights 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

As a student in Université Laval in Québec city (Canada), my teachers usually recommand books in our maternal language, french. But for this class titled The Athenian Democracy, our teacher recommanded this book. This book is a piece of art, a complete view of what might have been civil right and practice in Antiquity, in Athens, that is. I also recommad it for every people interested in ancient history and in, foremost, politics. Hansen reviews political practices with an continuous effort, respecting what were man, not only statistics or technics.

Editorial Review:

The Athenian democracy of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. is the most famous and perhaps most nearly perfect example of direct democracy. Covering the period 403-322 B.C., Mogens Herman Hansen focuses on the crucial last thirty years, which coincided with the political career of Demosthenes. Hansen distinguishes between the city's seven political institutions: the Assembly, the nomothetai, the People's Court, the boards of magistrates, the Council of Five Hundred, the Areopagos, and ho boulomenos. He discusses how Athenians conceived liberty both as the ability to participate in the decision-making process and as the right to live without oppression from the state or other citizens. Equality was conceived of as an equality not of nature but of opportunity.

Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler

Roger Griffin

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Intellectual debates surrounding modernity, modernism, and fascism continue to be active and hotly contested. In this ambitious book, renowned expert on fascism Roger Griffin analyzes Western modernity and the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler and offers a pioneering new interpretation of the links between these apparently contradictory phenomena.
Using a wealth of examples, Griffin describes how modernism's roots lay in part in the fundamental human need to perceive a transcendent meaning and purpose to life--and to restore this purpose in times of experienced decay and social breakdown. This sense of revolution and rebirth provided the context in which fascism sought a new world based on the health and strength of the nation or race.
Modernism and Fascism is an original and fascinating synthesis of data and ideas which will be of interest to art and intellectual historians, specialists in the study of modernity and modernism, and experts in fascist studies. It also offers stimulating new insights to all those concerned with the many contemporary movements (e.g. Al-Qaeda, Christian fundamentalists) prepared to fight for their belief in the transcendental meaning of life against the inroads of an increasingly globalized materialism. This is a book which promises to have a resonance far beyond the already broad academic parameters of the project, and will inspire a new wave of scholarly interest in modernity.

Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate

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Editorial Review:

Representing five major areas of Augustan scholarship--historiography, poetry, art, religion, and politics--the nineteen contributors to this volume bring us closer to a balanced, up-to-date account of Augustus and his principate.