PSC 411: Great Political Thinkers (Delehanty)

History of Political Theory: An Introduction is an engaging introduction to the main figures in the history of Western Political Theory and their most important works. Volume I traces the development of political theory "from the beginning" in ancient Greece through the Reformation. Mainsubjects examined include the Classical political theory of the Greek polis, the Hellenistic period, the rise of Christian political theory, political theory of the middle ages, and the Reformation. Major figures examined include Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Marsilius ofPadua, and Martin Luther.Throughout, the great theorists are closely examined in their historical contexts, with extensive quotations allowing them to speak for themselves. Central concepts employed in their works are carefully examined, with special attention to how these fit together to form coherent theories. The worksof the great theorists are further considered in regard to how they bear on issues of contemporary concern, such as constitutionalism, natural law, and resistance to unjust authority. The result is not only an exploration of the great works of political theory but a demonstration of their continuing relevance.

History of Political Theory: An Introduction not only explores the great works of Western political theory but demonstrates their continuing relevance. Volume II traces the origin and development of liberal political theory, and so the foundations for contemporary views. The work providesa readable, scholarly introduction to the great figures in Western political theory from Hobbes to Marx. Major theorists examined include Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Burke, Mill, and Marx, not only major figures in the liberal tradition but liberal political theory's most importantcritics.Theorists are examined in their historical contexts, with extensive quotations allowing them to speak for themselves. Central concepts employed in their works are carefully examined, with special attention to both how they fit together to form coherent theories and how they bear on issues ofcontemporary concern. Major concepts examined include freedom, rights, political obligation, and revolution. Emphasizing depth rather than breadth, this work is an ideal introduction tool for instructors who have been searching for a text that combines careful exposition of important politicaltheorists and clear, critical analysis.

This book demonstrates the rich diversity and depth of political philosophy in the twentieth century. Catherine H. Zuckert has compiled a collection of essays recounting the lives of political theorists, connecting each biography with the theorist's life work and explaining the significance of the contribution to modern political thought. The essays are organized to highlight the major political alternatives and approaches. Beginning with essays on John Dewey, Carl Schmitt and Antonio Gramsci, representing the three main political alternatives - liberal, fascist and communist - at mid-century, the book proceeds to consider the lives and works of émigrés such as Hannah Arendt, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss, who brought a continental perspective to the United States after World War II. The second half of the collection contains essays on recent defenders of liberalism, such as Friedrich Hayek, Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls and liberalism's many critics, including Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas and Alasdair MacIntyre.

Novum organum / Francis Bacon -- Discourse on method / Rene Descartes -- Leviathan / Thomas Hobbes -- Thoughts / Blaise Pascal -- Phaedra / Jean Racine -- An essay concerning human understanding / John Locke -- Of civil government / John Locke -- Essay on man / Alexander Pope -- Candide / Voltaire -- The social contract / Jean Jacques Rousseau -- The wealth of nations / Adam Smith -- The progress of the human mind / Antoine Nicolas de Condorcet -- Reflections on the revolution in France / Edmund Burke -- Faust / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -- Democracy in America / Alexis de Tocqueville -- On liberty / John Stuart Mill -- Reason in history / Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel -- The communist manifesto / Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels -- The origin of species / Charles Darwin -- The brothers Karamazov, the grand inquisitor / Fyodor Dostoevsky -- Beyond good and evil / Friedrich Nietzsche -- Creative evolution / Henri Bergson -- Civilization and its discontents / Sigmund Freud -- My philosophical development / Bertrand Russell.

This volume makes available in an English translation the most significant part of Montesquieu's political, social and legal theory. About two-thirds of the volume has been translated from the Spirit of the Laws, not redone in English since the eighteenth century. That version was notoriously inadequate: Montesquieu's key terms were not rendered consistently; often his meaning was distorted by giving the nearest English eighteenth-century legal or institutional equivalent. Finally, English usage has changed so much that the eighteenth-century translation makes Montesquieu seem both quaint and obscure. This volume also includes substantial selections from the Persian Letters and the Considerations on the Causes of the Romans; Greatness and Decline. Although adequate translations of these works exist, it seemed advisable to maintain intellectual and stylistic consistency by providing English versions on the same principles as the Spirit of the Laws.