Political Science Subject Guide: Political Theory

Encompassing the whole spectrum of the history and theory of politics from Socrates to Rawls, this is the most comprehensive and scholarly reference work available on the subject. Longer entries also include recommended readings for further research.

This book, first published in 2000, is a general and comprehensive treatment of the political thought of ancient Greece and Rome. It begins with Homer and ends in late antiquity with Christian and pagan reflections on divine and human order. In between come studies of Plato, Aristotle and a host of other major and minor thinkers - poets, historians, philosophers - whose individuality is brought out by extensive quotation. The international team of distinguished scholars assembled by the editors includes historians of law, politics, culture and religion, and also philosophers. Some chapters focus mostly on the ancient context of the ideas they are examining, while others explore these ideas as systems of thought which resonate with modern or perennial concerns. This clearly written volume will long remain an accessible and authoritative guide to Greek and Roman thinking about government and community.

This volume offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of the history of a complex and varied body of ideas over a period of more than one thousand years. A work of both synthesis and assessment, The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought presents the results of several decades of critical scholarship in the field, and reflects in its breadth of enquiry precisely that diversity of focus that characterized the medieval sense of the "political," preoccupied with universality at some levels, and with almost minute particularity at others. Among the vital questions explored by the distinguished team of contributors are the nature of authority, of justice, of property; the problem of legitimacy, of allegiance, of resistance to the powers that be; the character and functions of law, and the role of custom in maintaining a social structure.

The companion volume to the highly successful Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, this book presents a comprehensive account of the development of European political thinking through the Renaissance and the Reformation to the "scientific revolution" and political upheavals of the seventeenth century. Recent decades have seen intensive historical investigation and reappraisal in this field. Many established perspectives have changed; and while it would still be generally accepted that something distinctly "modern" took shape in the political thought of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there have been important changes in our understanding of what is "medieval" and what is "modern" and of the relationship between these concepts. A highly distinguished team of contributors present a unique, authoritative guide to these developments. Full bibliographical and biographical information is provided for those wishing to pursue specific topics in greater detail.

This major work of academic reference provides a comprehensive overview of the development of political thought from the late nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century. Written by a distinguished team of international contributors, this Cambridge History covers the rise of the welfare state and subsequent reactions to it, the fascist and communist critiques of and attempted alternatives to liberal democracy, the novel forms of political organization occasioned by the rise of the mass electorate and new social movements, the various intellectual traditions from positivism to post-modernism that have shaped the study of politics, the interaction between western and non-western traditions of political thought, and the challenge possed to the state by globalization. Every major theme in twentieth-century political thought is covered in a series of chapters at once scholarly and accessible, of interest and relevance to students and scholars of politics at all levels from beginning undergraduate upwards.

--10 volumes cover core of most Anglo-American philosophy - the metaphysical, epistemological and logical questions The usual menu of ethics, political philosophy and the history of philosophy The philosophy of other cultures - from Chinese, Arabic and Jewish philosophy to the philosophy of Africa and Latin America

Presents the best of the 10-volume Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy in a single volume. Covers the major philosophers and philosophical topics, and includes some new and updated material.