Contributed by the students of the late William Archibald Dunning.

A collection of penetrating essays on political thought - past, present and future - by a major commentator.

Excerpt from A History of Political Theories, Recent Times: Essays on Contemporary Developments in Political Theory IN examining the political theory of this period, it may found useful to take a bird's-eye view of the most Significant social tendencies of the time and a sweeping View of the broad types of ideas developed. We may inquire: What were the outstanding social forces of this period? What were the most conspicuous groups that developed Systems of political rational ization? What was the intellectual. Equipment, the reasoning technique of the various competing groups? What were, more specifically, the ways of arriving at political truth - the methods of political inquiry? If we know these factors - the social forces, the larger interest groups, the intellectual equipment of the time - it will facilitate the analysis and understanding of. The systems of ideas that appeared from time to time. And finally, what progress was made in the discussion of what are commonly regarded as the fundamentals of political. Theory? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Political theorists focus on the nature of justice, liberty, and equality while ignoring the institutions through which these ideals are achieved. Political scientists keep institutions in view but deploy a meager set of value-conceptions in analyzing them. A more political political theory is needed to address this gap, Jeremy Waldron argues.

This book provides a re-assessment of Kropotkin's political thought and suggests that the 'classical' tradition which has provided a lens for the discussion of his work has had a distorting effect on the interpretation of his ideas. By setting the analysis of his thought in a number of key historical contexts, Ruth Kinna reveals the enduring significance of his political thought and questions the usefulness of those approaches to the history of ideas that map historical changes to philosophical and theoretical shifts. One of the key arguments of the book is that Kropotkin contributed to the elaboration of an anarchist ideology, which has been badly misunderstood and which today is too often dismissed as outdated. This sympathetic but critical analysis corrects some popular myths about Kropotkin's thought, highlights the important and unique contribution he made to the history of socialist ideas and sheds new light on the nature of anarchist ideology.