Providing an accessible introduction to some of the key areas of modern political thought, this book uniquely combines historical and philosophical approaches to the subject.

One of the seminal voices of twentieth-century political thought, Michael Oakeshott's work has often fallen prey to the ideological labels applied to it by his interpreters and commentators. In this book, Luke Philip Plotica argues that we stand to learn more by embracing Oakeshott's own understanding of his work as contributions to an ever-evolving conversation of humanity. Building from Oakeshott's concept of conversation as an engagement among a plurality of voices "without symposiarch or arbiter" to dictate its course, Plotica explores several fundamental and recurring themes of Oakeshott's philosophical and political writings: individual agency, tradition, the state, and democracy. When viewed as interventions into an ongoing conversation of modern political thought, Oakeshott's work transcends the limits of familiar ideological labels, and his thought opens into deeper engagement with some of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century, including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Charles Taylor, Michel Foucault, and Hannah Arendt. Attending to these often unexpected or unrecognized affinities casts fresh light on some of Oakeshott's most familiar ideas and their systematic relations, and facilitates a better understanding of the breadth and depth of his political thought.

Presents unabridged works and substantive abridgments in preeminent translations, along with balanced, lucid, sophisticated introductions. This book includes a wide and balanced selection of many of the more important texts of modern political thought. To its great credit, it provides pertinent excerpts from frequently neglected authors, such as Calvin and Hume, which it nicely juxtaposes appear to be good, and the introductions to each section help to situate the writers in their historical and intellectual context and to alert students to some of the central issues that arise in the texts. This book offers an economical and useful approach to modern political thought.

Yves Charles Zarka shows you how Hobbes established the framework for modern political thought. Discover the origin of liberalism in the Hobbesian theory of negative liberty; that Hobbesian interest and contract are essential to contemporary discussions of the comportment of economic actors; and how state sovereignty returns anew in the form of the servility of the state. At the same time, Zarka controversially argues against received readings claiming that Hobbes is a thinker of a state monopoly on legitimate violence.

Modern Political Thought: A Reader is an excellent introduction to the key works of the major political thinkers from the English Civil War to the end of the 19th Century. It draws together the most important parts of seminal works of political thought such as Hobbes' Leviathan, Locke's Treatises, Rousseau's The Social Contract, Mill's On Liberty, together with substantial extracts from Machiavelli's The Prince and Marx's Capital. Accessible introductions are provided for each thinker, explaining their lives and works, and placing them in the historical context in which they worked and wrote.

This groundbreaking new work explores modern and contemporary political thought since 1750, looking at the thinkers, concepts, debates, issues, and national traditions that have shaped political thought from the Enlightenment to post-modernism and post-structuralism. Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought is two-volume A to Z reference that provides historical context to the philosophical issues and debates that have shaped attitudes toward democracy, citizenship, rights, property, duties, justice, equality, community, law, power, gender, race, and legitimacy over the last three centuries. It profiles major and minor political thinkers, and the national traditions, both Western and non-Western, which continue to shape and divide political thought. More than 200 scholars from leading international research institutions and organizations have provided signed entries that offer comprehensive coverage of: Thought of regions and countries, including African political thought, American political thought , Australasian political thought (Australian and New Zealand), Chinese political thought, Indian political thought, Islamic political Thought, Japanese political thought, and more Thought regarding contemporary issues such as abortion, affirmative action, animal rights, European integration, feminism, humanitarian intervention, international law, race and racism, and more The ideological spectrum from Marxism to neoconservatism, including anarchism, conservatism, Darwinism and Social Darwinism, Engels, fascism, the Frankfurt School, Lenin and Leninism, socialism, and more Connections of political thought to key areas of politics and other disciplines such as economics, psychology, law, and religion Notable time periods of political thought since 1750 Concepts including class, democratic theory, liberalism, nationalism, natural and human rights, and theories of the state Theorists and political intellectuals, both Western and non-Western including John Adams, Edmund Burke, Mohandas Gandhi, Immanuel Kant, Ayatollah Khomeini, Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, George Washington, and Mary Wollstonecraft