How to think politically : sages, scholars and statesmen whose ideas have shaped the world
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Bibliographic Information
How to think politically : sages, scholars and statesmen whose ideas have shaped the world
Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019
- : TPB
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Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
'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.
Table of Contents
Thinker Dates
Introduction: Politics - Might Made Right
ANCIENTS
1 Confucius: The Sage
2 Plato: The Dramatist
3 Aristotle: The Biologist
4 Augustine: The Realist
MEDIEVALS
5 Al-Farabi: The Imam
6 Maimonides: The Lawgiver
7 Thomas Aquinas: The Harmonizer
MODERNS
8 Niccolò Machiavelli: The Patrio
9 Thomas Hobbes: The Absolutist
10 John Locke: The Puritan
11 David Hume: The Sceptic
12 Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Citizen
13 Edmund Burke: The Counter-Revolutionary
14 Mary Wollstonecroft: The Feminist
15 Immanuel Kant: The Purist
16 Thomas Paine: The Firebrand
17 Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel: The Mystic
18 James Madison: The Founder
19 Alexis de Tocqueville: The Prophet
20 John Stuart Mill: The Individualist
21 Karl Marx: The Revolutionary
22 Friedrich Nietsche: The Psychologist
CONTEMPORARIES
23 Mohandas Gandhi: The Warrior
24 Sayyid Qutb: The Jihadist
25 Hannah Arendt: The Pariah
26 Mao Zedong: The Chairman
27 Friedrich Hayek: The Libertairan
28 John Rawls: The Liberal
29 Martha Nussbaum: The Self-Developer
30 Arne Naess: The Mountaineer
Conclusion: The Unhappy Marriage of Politics and Philosophy
Suggested Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
