A History of Political Thought From Antiquity to the Present

by Haddock, Bruce

• ISBN13: 9780745640846
• ISBN10: 0745640842
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-22
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

This book is a comprehensive introduction to the history of political thought, tracing the development of arguments and controversies from ancient Greece, through different forms of community, state and empire, to today's global concerns. Bruce Haddock highlights the bewildering variety of contexts that have framed political thinking, yet also displays structural features that have proved to be remarkably stable over time. An important theme in the book is the need to see political philosophy, even in its most abstract formulations, as a response to historically contingent circumstances, without limiting its relevance to those circumstances. The emphasis throughout is on political thinking as a response to hard choices. Major thinkers covered include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Grotius, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Hume, Kant, Rousseau, Burke, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Lenin, Schmitt, Nietzsche, Foucault, Oakeshott and Rawls. The book treats political philosophy and theory as a tentative engagement with a fractured and controversial past. Yet political thinking remains the exercise of a burden of a responsibility that is inescapable for us. Haddock introduces a history that continues to shape our understanding of ourselves as political and historical creatures. A History of Political Thought will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, history and philosophy.

Author Biography

Bruce Haddock is Professor of Modern European Social and Political Thought at the School of European Studies, Cardiff University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Nature and Convention

Law

The Earthly City

The State

Rights

Enlightenment

Revolution

The Age of Ideologies

Liberalism

Conservatism

Nationalism

Socialism

Communism

Fascism

Liberal Democracy

Global Politics

Suggestions for Further Reading

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.