Western Politcal Thought: From Plato to Marx

Western Politcal Thought: From Plato to Marx is an energetic, engaged and lucid account of the most important political and social thinkers and the enduring themes of the last two and a half millennia. Written with the under-graduate and graduate students of political science in mind, the book traces the development of political thought from Plato to Marx. It focuses on individul thinkers and texts and offers original views of thorists and by highlighting those which may have been unjustly neglected. It develops the wider themes of political thought and relations between thinkers over time.

Each chapter is intended to present a coherent political theory derived from the works of a classical political thinker. All chapters share a common organizational structure, a feature that should facilitate comparison, accentuating the distinctive implications of accepting one of these alternative ways of looking at political reality for understanding and evaluating political possibilities. Although each of the subsequent chapter can stand by itself, none should be considered a substitute for reading the original work of a great political thinker.

The author has presented a fascinating history of Western political thought in a witty, confident and sometimes extremely poetic style. It will inform, challenge, provoke and entertain in what people have had to say about politics in the last two and half thousand years.