This book, first published in 1992, presents a comprehensive scholarly 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. It is written by a highly distinguished team of contributors.

This volume continues the story of European political theorising by focusing on medieval and Renaissance thinkers. It includes extensive discussion of the practices that underpinned medieval political theories and which continued to play crucial roles in the eventual development of early-modern political institutions and debates. The author strikes a balance between trying to understand the philosophical cogency of medieval and Renaissance arguments on the one hand, elucidating why historically-suited medieval and Renaissance thinkers thought the ways they did about politics; and why we often think otherwise.

A History of Political Thought is an accessible introduction to the history of political and economic thought; its main focus is the rise, and eventual consolidation, of modern market society. It asks: What are the effects of private property and commerce on individual well-being and on the stability of the political community? A History of Political Thought answers this central question through the careful study of political philosophers and economists, from ancient Greece to the twenty-first century. The book does not have an ideological agenda and gives equal voice to thinkers on opposite sides of the political spectrum. This is one of its key merits and a mark of distinction: its willingness to treat stark opponents – Hobbes and Locke, Smith and Marx, Keynes and Hayek, among others – as equally worthy of serious study. In doing so, the book provides students with a very powerful arsenal of ideas about the evolution of the market and also provides a solid introduction to the history of political thought.

African American Political Thought offers an unprecedented philosophical history of thinkers from the African American community and African diaspora who have addressed the central issues of political life: democracy, race, violence, liberation, solidarity, and mass political action. Melvin L. Rogers and Jack Turner have brought together leading scholars to reflect on individual intellectuals from the past four centuries, developing their list with an expansive approach to political expression. The collected essays consider such figures as Martin Delany, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Audre Lorde, whose works are addressed by scholars such as Farah Jasmin Griffin, Robert Gooding-Williams, Michael Dawson, Nick Bromell, Neil Roberts, and Lawrie Balfour. While African American political thought is inextricable from the historical movement of American political thought, this volume stresses the individuality of Black thinkers, the transnational and diasporic consciousness, and how individual speakers and writers draw on various traditions simultaneously to broaden our conception of African American political ideas. This landmark volume gives us the opportunity to tap into the myriad and nuanced political theories central to Black life. In doing so, African American Political Thought: A Collected History transforms how we understand the past and future of political thinking in the West.

History of Political Theory: An Introduction is an engaging introduction to the main figures in the history of Western Political Theory and their most important works. The second volume traces the origin and development of liberal political theory, and so the foundations for contemporary views.

A World History of Political Thought is an outstanding and innovative work with profound significance for the study of the history of political thought, providing a wide-ranging, detailed and global overview of political thought from 600 BC to the 21st century. Treating both western and non-western systems of political thought as equal and placing them as they should be; side by side.

How the history of political thought relates to politics, history and culture of various nations.

Finally in a one-volume paperback edition, On Politics is one of the most ambitious and hugely readable histories of political philosophy in nearly a century. Praised widely upon hardcover publication, Alan Ryan’s “masterpiece” (David Ulin, Los Angeles Times) blends history and philosophy to examine three thousand years of political thought. Drawing on three decades of research, Ryan insightfully traces the origins of political philosophy from the ancient Greeks to the present and evokes the lives and minds of our greatest thinkers in a way that makes reading about them a “remarkable experience” (Jeremy Waldron, New York Review of Books). Whether writing about Plato or Augustine, Tocqueville or Jefferson, Ryan illuminates John Dewey’s dictum that the role of philosophy is less to see truth than to enhance life. With this “epic” (John Keane, Financial Times) tour de force, Ryan affirms his place as one of the most influential political philosophers of our time.

Iain Hampsher-Monk’s lucid and accessible history of modern political thought is the introduction which many have been waiting for, providing a thorough guide to the ideas and writings of major political thinkers from Hobbes to Marx (including a full account of The Federalist papers). The author’s aim throughout is to incorporate the benefits of modern scholarship of the historical school, with its emphasis on historical and political circumstances as a key to meaning. Recognizing that for most students time will not allow detailed study of the historical and political contexts of particular works, Hampsher-Monk provides here the background necessary for the reader to situate the writings of key thinkers in relation to wider currents in intellectual and political history. A History of Modern Political Thought will meet the needs of both general readers and students of political theory and philosophy. It is an indispensable secondary source which aims to situate, explain, and provoke thought about the major works of political theory likely to be encountered by students of modern political thought.

Combines historical and theoretical analysis, setting political thought in the context of various frameworks of the modern world. From the impact of the French and American revolutions, through reaction and constitutional consolidation, this book traces the contrasting criteria invoked to justify particular forms of political order from 1789.