Overview

'A wonderful introduction to history’s most influential scribblers' – Steven Pinker What is truly at stake in politics? Nothing less than how we should live, as individuals and as communities. This book goes beyond the surface headlines, the fake news and the hysteria to explore the timeless questions posed and answers offered by a diverse group of the 30 greatest political thinkers who have ever lived. Are we political, economic, or religious animals? Should we live in small city-states, nations, or multinational empires? What values should politics promote? Should wealth be owned privately or in common? Do animals also have rights? There is no idea too radical for this global assortment of thinkers, which includes: Confucius; Plato; Augustine; Machiavelli; Burke; Wollstonecraft; Marx; Nietzsche; Gandhi; Qutb; Arendt; Nussbaum, Naess and Rawls. In each brief chapter, the authors paint a vivid portrait of these often prescient, always compelling political thinkers, showing how their ideas grew out of their own dramatic lives and times and evolved beyond them. Now more than ever we need to be reminded that politics can be a noble, inspiring and civilising art. And if we want to understand today’s political world, we need to understand the foundations of politics and its architects. This is the perfect guide to both.

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9781472961785

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A wonderful introduction to history's most influential scribblers, filled with clear explanations and engaging detail * Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress * This book offers an excellent preparation for those who seek to distinguish the best from the worst in political life * Michael D. Gillespie, Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Duke University * The authors have written a kind of Plutarch's Lives of the great political philosophers. Their lively and engaging style make even the most abstract ideas come alive. This is a book that can be read and enjoyed by all. * Steven B. Smith, Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science, Yale University, author of Political Philosophy * An elegant meditation on political power. In this beautifully written work, we meet an ensemble cast of philosophers who accept that power can corrupt, but also redeem us. Garrard and Murphy offer an extended argument for a self-critical view of citizenship, insisting that you may not care about politics but politics cares about you. * Eric Beerbohm, Professor of Government, Harvard University *

A wonderful introduction to history's most influential scribblers, filled with clear explanations and engaging detail * Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress * This book offers an excellent preparation for those who seek to distinguish the best from the worst in political life * Michael D. Gillespie, Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Duke University * The authors have written a kind of Plutarch's Lives of the great political philosophers. Their lively and engaging style make even the most abstract ideas come alive. This is a book that can be read and enjoyed by all. * Steven B. Smith, Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science, Yale University, author of Political Philosophy *

Author Information

Graeme Garrard is the author of four books, most recently The Return of the State: And Why It Is Essential For Our Health, Wealth and Happiness (Yale University Press, 2022). He has published many scholarly journal articles and popular essays in newspapers and magazines. Dr Garrard is Professor of Politics at Cardiff University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has taught at colleges and universities in Canada, Britain, France and the United States for 27 years, including 12 years at the Harvard Summer School. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and Oxford University. James Bernard Murphy is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, where he teaches political philosophy, jurisprudence, and ethics. Before becoming a professor, Murphy worked as an urban planner in the City of New York, where he was born. He received his Masters of City Planning from M.I.T. and his B.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. Murphy’s scholarly books include The Moral Economy of Labor (1993), Your Whole Life: Beyond Childhood and Adulthood (2020), and Deification in Classical Greek Philosophy and the Bible (forthcoming 2024). He has also written for a wider audience in his books How to Think Politically (with Graeme Garrard, 2019), Haunted by Paradise: A Philosopher's Quest for Biblical Answers to Key Moral Questions (2021), The Third Sword: On the Political Role of Prophets (forthcoming, 2023), and in essays for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

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