Two generations of students inspired by Harvey Mansfield come together here to demonstrate how their diverse approaches illuminate the topic of the arts of rule and speak to the wide scope of Mansfield's contributions. The essays collected here cover both ancient and modern ground. The first section covers topics such as Xenophon's question of what it is to be a gentleman, Aristotle's view of friendship, Montaigne's account of the highest good, and Montesquieu's elevation of modesty. The s...

In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests--so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice--was assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man. Hirschman here offers a new interpretation for the rise of capitalism, one that emphasizes the continuities between old and new, in contra...

Designed for undergraduate students, a historical survey of the most important political philosophers in the Western tradition.This volume provides an unequaled introduction to the thought of chief contributors to the Western tradition of political philosophy from classical Greek antiquity to the twentieth century. Written by specialists on the various philosophers, this third edition has been expanded significantly to include both new and revised essays.

'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' To this 'one very simple principle' the whole of Mill's essay On Liberty is dedicated. While many of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, from Adam Smith to Godwin and Thoreau, had celebrated liberty, it was Mill who organized the idea into a philosophy, and put it into the form in which it is generally known today.The editor of this essay, Gertrude Himmelfarb records responses to Mill's books and com...

Princeton Readings in Political Thought is one of the most engaging and up-to-date samplers of the standard works of Western political thinking from antiquity through modern times. Organized chronologically, from Thucydides to Foucault, the book brings together forty-four selections of enduring intellectual value--key articles, book excerpts, essays, and speeches--that have shaped our understanding of Western society and politics. Readers will find this work to be an invaluable refe...

This "fresh new rendition of Rousseau's major political writings is a boon for scholars and students alike"—with a critical introduction by the translator (Richard Boyd, Georgetown University).Individualist and communitarian. Anarchist and totalitarian. Progressive and reactionary. Since the eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been called all of these things. Few philosophers have been the subject of such intense debate, yet almost everyone agrees that Rou...

Ethics both in theory and practice. Phrased in non-technical language, Right and Reason is a thoroughly competent book in the philosophy of Ethics, which gives the science of morality from the Aristotelian-Thomistic, common-sense school of thought--which is none other than the Perennial Philosophy of the Ages, the philosophy outside of which one's positions quickly become absurd and all reasoning ends up in dead-ends. Impr. 627 pgs,

A thoroughly updated and substantially expanded edition of an acclaimed anthologyThis is a thoroughly updated and substantially expanded new edition of one of the most popular, wide-ranging, and engaging anthologies of Western political thinking, one that spans from antiquity to the twenty-first century. In addition to the majority of the pieces that appeared in the original edition, this new edition features exciting new selections from more recent thinkers who ad...

This book by Richard G. Stevens is a comprehensive introduction to the nature of political philosophy. It offers definitions of philosophy and politics, showing the tension between the two and the origin of political philosophy as a means of resolution of that tension. Plato and Aristotle are examined in order to see the search for the best political order. Inquiry is then made into political philosophy's new tension brought about by the growth of revealed religion in the Middle Ages. It t...

Kropotkin’s Ethics: Origin and Development is, in a sense, a continuation of his well-known work, “Mutual Aid as a Factor of Evolution.” The basic ideas of the two books are closely connected, almost inseparable, in fact: — the origin and progress of human relations in society. Only, in the “Ethics” Kropotkin approaches his theme through a study of the ideology of these relations removing ethics from the sphere of the speculative...

This is the first comprehensive exploration of ancient and modern tyranny in the history of political thought. Waller R. Newell argues that modern tyranny and statecraft differ fundamentally from the classical understanding. Newell demonstrates a historical shift in emphasis from the classical thinkers' stress on the virtuous character of rulers and the need for civic education to the modern emphasis on impersonal institutions and cold-blooded political method. By diagnosing the varieties ...