General Books - Page 12

Debating Deliberative Democracy (Philosophy, Politics and Society 7)

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Great Collection 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book collects 11 essays by distinguished authors on the topics of deliberative democracy. Most of the major approaches are represented: for example, Fishkin and Ackerman's "deliberation day" proposal, Sunstein's and Pettit's republicanism, Iris Young's "communicative" approach, and Goodins "deliberation within" view. Also included are some skeptics, such as Shapiro and Hardin. In short, this collection is a good guide to the state of play in deliberative democracy.

Editorial Review:

Deliberative democracy is based on the principle that legitimate democracy grows out of public deliberation among citizens. This remarkably fruitful concept has spawned investigations along several lines, many of which are explored in Debating Deliberative Democracy. This book explores the nature and value of deliberation, the feasibility and desirability of consensus on contentious issues, the implications of institutional complexity and cultural diversity for democratic decision-making, and the significance of voting and majority rule in deliberative arrangements.

This is the latest volume in the distinguished Philosophy, Politics and Society series, known for engaging debates that cut across political science, philosophy, the law, and other disciplines.

Harrington: 'The Commonwealth of Oceana' and 'A System of Politics' (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

James Harrington

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An amazing forgotten book 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 22 people found this review helpful.

The ideas of Isac Newton, John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith have their roots in this book.

Editorial Review:

James Harrington's brief career as a political and historical theorist spans the last years of the Cromwellian Protectorate and the Restoration of 1660. This volume comprises the first and last of Harrington's writings. Harrington was the first theorist to interpret the English Civil Wars as a revolution, the result of a longterm process of social change that led to the decay of the old political order. Professor Pocock's lucid introduction emphasizes Harrington's place as a pivotal figure in the history of English political thought. This edition also contains a chronology of principal events in Harrington's life and a guide to further reading.

Republics Ancient and Modern, Volume I: The Ancien Régime in Classical Greece

Paul A. Rahe

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To Strauss or not to Strauss, part 1 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Paul Rahe's Republics Ancient and Modern was originally published in hardback in one volume. For the paperback version published in 1994, he has chosen to split his work into three volumes. Each volume deals with one of the three major time periods on which his work focuses. The first volume deals with the classical Greece city states.
Rahe has two main purposes in these books. His first purpose is to debunk the idea that the American founders were heavily influenced by the classical republican tradition. In fact, Rahe argues that the Constitution was designed in opposition to classical republican ideas.
His second purpose is a methodological one. Rahe is heavily influenced by Leo Struass. It shows in his basic thesis of the war between the ancients and the moderns and it shows in his attempts to reveal the esoteric in many of the writers he discusses.
It also shows in his rejection of historicism and other modern historical methods. Which brings me to one thing that I admire about Rahe. He obviously has methodological bones to pick with Quinton Skinner and the Cambridge School, and with the Marxist approach of, say, the early Eugene Genovese. But he has also read deeply of these and many other writers with whom he disagrees and has learned from them all. Rahe is at one and the same time a very generous and opinionated scholar. And he is phenomenally learned.
In this volume he discusses Homer, Hesiod, Xenophon, Lycurgus, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Polybius, Thucydidus, Euripides, Cicero, Plutarch, Aeschylus, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Isocrates, Pericles, Pindar, ad infinitum. He has read them all, absorbed them all and compared them all.
He then seems to have absorbed anything ever written about all of them. It is overwhelming.
Rahe wants to argue that life in classical Greece was the result of two main influences. The Greeks believed that human beings are political animals possessed of a capacity for logos. In other words, we can reason together and come to agree on what we feel to be "the good, the just and the advantageous". To the Greeks of the democratic city-states, politics was about the communal discourse sustaining the "concord regarding loved things held in common" (Augustine's phrase which is a leitmotif for Rahe). This concord has to be seen as an end in itself, it is not some sort of false consciousness used to legitimate the hegemony of a ruling group.
The other main influence on the Greek city states was the fact that they were nearly always in a state of war (with each other or those pesky Persians) or preparing for war. Thus the Greeks had to foster "homonoia" or "like-mindedness" or solidarity. The way that they came to do this was through both a paideia (education or character formation) and a system of dispersing honor or recognitions.
Rahe takes Sparta as his case study for his argument. He does so because up until the last century or so, most students of ancient Greece recognized Sparta as being the most representative of the city-states. In many ways, it was what the other city states like Athens or Cornith hoped to achieve.
The end result was an obsession with honor, virtue and with largeness of soul. Everything was subordinate to the requirements of the city. This included family and personal liberty. Liberty for the Greeks was the right to participate in the politics of the city state and to vie for glory. They would never consider allowing someone who was opposed to war to not serve in the ranks of the army. Two of the consequences which Rahe explores was the subjugation of women and the embrace of slavery. Slavery freed the citizen from having to be involved in the making of money.
The personal property of the citizen was not personal. It was expected that it would be used for the good of the city. A man who came from a wealthy family might earn the gratitude of other citizens by providing them with the necessary armaments of the hoplite (foot soldier). They strove to minimize civil strife and to make sure that everyone within the city thought as much alike as was possible. They used pederastry as a means to indoctrinate young men into armed service. As those young men grew older they then would come to take younger men as lovers and so on.
These relationships would then be abandoned in their thirties for married life. But even after marriage, the men were expected to spend most of their time with their hoplite units.
Rahe explains how all this helped to generate the Greek disregard for commerce and for technical innovation. He also talks about the importance of their religion in maintaining the community. He brings out the underlying irony of the basic Greek presumption of humans as being rational political animals. This presumption encourage the development of philosophy which served to critically undermine many of the institutions of the city state. Socrates was executed for good reason. Or so the Athenians believed.
Throughout this volume, Rahe is throwing in Hamilton, Adam Smith and many others into the mix. In fact, I started to notate some of my underlinings with "DBAM" to indicate a passage that noted a difference between the ancients and the moderns. For example,in discussing the attitude of the Greeks toward technological progress, Rahe notes that they viewed it "with a jaundiced eye" because a science pledged to make life easier was a science that would make "soft men" (p.74). To someone like Adam Smith or James Madison, that was exactly the argument in favor of such a science.
I am not a student of ancient Greece. I came to read Rahe to understand more about the founding fathers of this country. But I think that what he has achieved in this first volume of this work is altogether brilliant.
In fact, my major complaint is that it isn't long enough or detailed enough. He sometimes states that he disagrees with another scholar (in his very extensive notes) without going into the dispute thoroughly enough. Another complaint (more of an annoyance)is that he seems to expect the reader to have a rich classical library close to hand. In many of his notes, he will say something like "Consider this passage from Plato's Republic in light of what Cicero had to say here and don't forget that Polybius said something in this book that must be compared with what Xenophon had to say in that passage. After absorbing all that, read what Augustine had to say in this part of The City of God. And then you will see that I am right." Okay, he doesn't ever really say anything like that last part but it is there sometimes between the lines. (See, I am turning into a little Straussian).
But seriously folks, I cannot imagine that anyone has done a better job of explicating how their knowledge of the Ancient Greeks effected the founding fathers. Rahe has given us something strong and rich- not only a good look at what life was like in ancient Sparta but how that effected the men and women who created this country.
In my review of volume 2, I will speak a little more to Rahe's method.

Editorial Review:

Bridging the gap between political theory, comparative history and government, and constitutional prudence, Rahe challenges prevailing interpretations of ancient Greek republicanism, early modern political thought, and the founding of the American republic. He focuses on the practical consequences of affirming and denying the presumption that humans are political animals able to reason together concerning justice and common good.

The Book of the Body Politic (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

Christine de Pizan

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Editorial Review:

This is the first translation into modern English of Christine de Pizan's major political work, The Book of the Body Politic (c. 1407). Written during the Hundred Years' War by France's first female professional writer, it discusses the education and behavior appropriate for princes, nobility and common people, so that all classes can understand their responsibilities toward society as a whole. The product of a time of unrest and disorder, the book provides a fascinating view of politics from the perspective of an educated woman.

Democracy and Disagreement

Amy Gutmann, Dennis Thompson

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The din and deadlock of public life in America--where insults are traded, slogans proclaimed, and self-serving deals made and unmade--reveal the deep disagreement that pervades our democracy. The disagreement is not only political but also moral, as citizens and their representatives increasingly take extreme and intransigent positions. A better kind of public discussion is needed, and Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson provide an eloquent argument for "deliberative democracy" today. They develop a principled framework for opponents to come together on moral and political issues.

Gutmann and Thompson show how a deliberative democracy can address some of our most difficult controversies--from abortion and affirmative action to health care and welfare--and can allow diverse groups separated by class, race, religion, and gender to reason together. Their work goes beyond that of most political theorists and social scientists by exploring both the principles for reasonable argument and their application to actual cases. Not only do the authors suggest how deliberative democracy can work, they also show why improving our collective capacity for moral argument is better than referring all disagreements to procedural politics or judicial institutions. Democracy and Disagreement presents a compelling approach to how we might resolve some of our most trying moral disagreements and live with those that will inevitably persist, on terms that all of us can respect.

People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia

Michael I. Niman

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Very readable and enjoyable piece of non-fiction 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Having been to a few Rainbow Gatherings in my past, Niman's book caught my interest. However the book is not written only for those familiar with the Rainbow Familiy. Using a combination of participant observation and comparison to other utopian societies, Niman shows the complexity of this community of choice.

This is the best book available on the Rainbows 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Michael Niman's book is the most objective and comprehensive study to date of the Rainbow Family of Living Light. Professor Niman utilizes numerous interviews with Family members, Forest Service officials, and other participants to present a well-rounded view of a complex social system. Of particular interest will be his comparison of the Rainbow Family to other Utopian societies of the past and present.

Truthful, it gets past hype and glamor and gets to the facts 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 10 people found this review helpful.

As part of a church that is ministering to Rainbow People and helping the "rejected of the rejected" come to Father God who is there for them, this gives some insights into structure and issues for understanding folks within the Rainbow culture. This is a very well researched, structured and written piece of work.

Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement (Practical and Professional Ethics Series)

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Editorial Review:

The banner of deliberative democracy is attracting increasing numbers of supporters, in both the world's older and newer democracies. This effort to renew democratic politics is widely seen as a reaction to the dominance of liberal constitutionalism. But many questions surround this new project. What does deliberative democracy stand for? What difference would deliberative practices make in the real world of political conflict and public policy design? What is the relationship between deliberative politics and liberal constitutional arrangements?

The 1996 publication of Amy Gutmann and Dennis F. Thompsons Democracy and Disagreement was a signal contribution to the ongoing debate over the role of moral deliberation in democratic politics. In Deliberative Politics an all-star cast of political, legal, and moral commentators seek to criticize, extend, or provide alternatives to Gutmann and Thompson's hopeful model of democratic deliberation. The essays discuss the value and limits of moral deliberation in politics, and take up practical policy issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and health care reform. Among the impressive roster of contributors are Norman Daniels, Stanley Fish, William A. Galston, Jane Mansbridge, Cass R. Sunstein, Michael Walzer, and Iris Marion Young, and the editor of the volume, Stephen Macedo. The book concludes with a thoughtful response from Gutmann and Thompson to their esteemed critics.

This fine collection is essential reading for anyone who takes seriously the call for a more deliberative politics.

The Failure Of The Centralized State: Institutions And Self-governance In Africa (Westview Special Studies on Africa)

James Wunsch, Dele Olowu, Editors *, John W Harbeson, Vincent Ostrom, Jose M Insulza

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Omnipotent government,: The rise of the total state and total war,

Ludwig Von Mises

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Articulate theory of fascism as a branch of socialism. 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 19 people found this review helpful.

Ludwig Von Mises, one of the last great Austrian liberal economists, had escaped from Nazi and Communist aggression in continental Europes at the time the book was written. Mises had arrived at the conclusion, made famous by his former student Friedrich Hayek, that fascism was simply a logical extension of the socialist philosophy. The need to engage in violent conquest was a result of socialism's attempts to raise national living standards while avoiding the "plague" of international capitalism. The only alternative for nations such as Germany, which had already embraced autocratic socialism under the Bismark, was to launch an unending series of military assults against their neighbors in order to avoid national starvation and impoverishment. The true irony of socialism is that it creates conditions that are completely opposed to its stated goals i.e. militarism instead of peace, poverty instead of plenty, and the destruction of freedom instead of an increase in human growth and potential.

Editorial Review:

Published in 1944, during World War II, "Omnipotent Government" was Mises' first book written and published after he arrived in the United States. In this volume Mises provides in economic terms an explanation of the international conflicts that caused both world wars. Although written more than half a century ago, Mises' main theme still stands: government interference in the economy leads to conflicts and wars. According to Mises, the last and best hope for peace is liberalism - the philosophy of liberty, free markets, limited government, and democracy.