Requiem for the Republic is a collection of socio-political essays on the state of the Irish nation. Unfortunately, the current ‘New Ireland’ is but a pale shadow of the republic that was established a hundred years ago in 1921 following the War of Independence. The thesis of these critical essays is that Ireland is no longer a true republic. It is the author’s contention that it has become a servile secularist state, ruled by a political elite with an inflated sense of self-importance and a lack of empathy for the common people. The essays look at different aspects of the transformation of a Christian nation into a secularist state. The main focus is on the clash of cultures between the toxic ideology of the ‘New Ireland’ and the high ideals set by the founding fathers of the republic. Of course, the views expressed by Bourke are his personal opinions. They are contestable and will be contested. Many ‘liberal’ writers choose to ignore the disintegration of Christian Ireland and its traditional values. However, Bourke will not be silent. He states his case with searing honesty knowing that to remain silent would not serve the public interest.

When In Search of the Republic was originally published in 1987, scholarly interpretations of the concept of virtue in the American founding were considered peripheral to mainstream political theory. Since then, the authors' arguments that public virtue, civic responsibility, and private morality were at the heart of the Founding Fathers' political thought is now accepted by a growing number of contemporary political theorists. This revised edition includes a new preface that places In Search of the Republic within the context of contemporary debates over the role of virtue and religion in early American political discourse. This is a superb introduction for students and scholars interested in learning about the moral, political, and constitutional theories of the Founding Fathers.

This long-promised sequel to Ophuls’s influential and controversial classic Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity is an equally provocative critique of the liberal philosophy of government. Ophuls contends that the modern political paradigm—that is, the body of political concepts and beliefs bequeathed to us by the Enlightenment—is no longer intellectually tenable or practically viable. Our attempt to live individualistically, hedonistically, and rationally has failed utterly, causing a comprehensive crisis that is at once political, military, economic, ecological, ethical, psychological, and spiritual. Liberal politics has abandoned virtue, rejected community, and flouted nature, thereby becoming the author of its own demise. By exposing the intrinsically contradictory and self-destructive character of Hobbesian political systems, Ophuls subverts our conventional wisdom at every turn. Indeed, his impassioned text reads more like a Greek tragedy than a conventional political argument. He critiques feminism, multiculturalism, the welfare state, and a host of other “liberal” shibboleths—but Ophuls is not yet another neoconservative. The aim of his thesis is far more radical and progressive, offering a political vision that entirely transcends the categories of liberal thought. His is a Thoreauvian vision of a “politics of consciousness” rooted in ecology as the moral and intellectual basis for governance in the twenty-first century. Ophuls holds that a polity based on a renewed erotic connection with nature offers a genuine solution to this crisis of contemporary civilization and that only within such a polity will it be possible to fulfill the worthy liberal goal of individual self-development. Ophuls’s work will interest and challenge a wide spectrum of readers, though it will not necessarily be well liked or easily accepted. No one will put down this book with his or her settled convictions about American culture intact, nor will readers ever again take modern civilization and its survival for granted.

As Karl Marx the icon has fallen along with so many communist regimes, we are left with the mystery of Karl Marx the man, the complexities of a life that has profoundly affected millions. A Requiem for Karl Marx is Frank Manuel's searching meditation on that life, a learned and elegantly written engagement with the man and his work. Manuel gives us a psychological portrait rendered with sympathy and critical detachment, a probing look at the connections between the private drama of Marx's life and his revolutionary ideas. Manuel pursues these connections from Marx's adolescence and education in Trier through his university studies, marriage to a German baroness, and early affiliation with French and German radical groups. Here we see Marx in moments of youthful rapture, in periods of despair, in maneuvers of blatant hypocrisy, in outbursts of self-mockery. We follow his involuted response to his status as a converted Jew, observe the psychic toll of debilitating bouts of illness, and witness the shattering effects of his aggressive, often brutal conduct toward friend and foe alike. Manuel analyzes in intricate detail the central role of Marx's enduring relationship with Friedrich Engels, which appears to transcend the bounds of friendship, and his changing behavior toward his wife, Jenny, the neurotic and tragic figure who shared his dismal London exile. What becomes clear in this narrative is the link between Marx's personal life and his ideas about class struggle, revolutionary strategy, and utopia--as well as the impact of his personal vision and political tactics on the movements that followed him, down to our day.

The idea of an Australian republic has existed from the moment the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour. This book is a comprehensive history of republican thought and activity in Australia and traces republican debate in Australia from 1788. It explains the pivotal role played by republican philosophies in the decades before responsible government was granted to the Australian colonies in 1856 and prior to federation in 1901. Mark McKenna also describes the often erratic appearance of republicanism during the twentieth century, focusing in particular on the period after 1975, when the issue of a republic became a prominent and increasingly fixed term on the political agenda. This book will be essential reading for all those with an interest in political and intellectual history. It calls for a higher level of public debate about the republic and makes an outstanding contribution to this debate itself.

The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multivolume history of the American nation. In the newest volume in the series, The Republic for Which It Stands, acclaimed historian Richard White offers a fresh and integrated interpretation of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age as the seedbed of modern America. At the end of the Civil War the leaders and citizens of the victorious North envisioned the country's future as a free-labor republic, with a homogenous citizenry, both black and white. The South and West were to be reconstructed in the image of the North. Thirty years later Americans occupied an unimagined world. The unity that the Civil War supposedly secured had proved ephemeral. The country was larger, richer, and more extensive, but also more diverse. Life spans were shorter, and physical well-being had diminished, due to disease and hazardous working conditions. Independent producers had become wage earners. The country was Catholic and Jewish as well as Protestant, and increasingly urban and industrial. The "dangerous" classes of the very rich and poor expanded, and deep differences -- ethnic, racial, religious, economic, and political -- divided society. The corruption that gave the Gilded Age its name was pervasive. These challenges also brought vigorous efforts to secure economic, moral, and cultural reforms. Real change -- technological, cultural, and political -- proliferated from below more than emerging from political leadership. Americans, mining their own traditions and borrowing ideas, produced creative possibilities for overcoming the crises that threatened their country. In a work as dramatic and colorful as the era it covers, White narrates the conflicts and paradoxes of these decades of disorienting change and mounting unrest, out of which emerged a modern nation whose characteristics resonate with the present day.

Scipio, Caesar, Augustus, Nero, Marcus Aurelius ... what was the secret to their power? And the famous Republic, was it really democracy? How were the legions structured? Who exactly were the slaves, the gladiators and the barbarians? What caused the mighty Empire to finally fall? The Handbook is a comprehensive summary of ancient Rome’s history, organized in a totally new format that makes it understandable and easy to scroll. It is the compelling story of Rome from its humble beginnings to the fall of a dominant empire. The book is made up of brief paragraphs with a clear focus on events put into their political and social context. With more than 500 photographs all linked to Google Maps, "A History of Ancient Rome - Handbook for Travelers" couples the historical facts to the places where they actually occurred, making it a truly unique historical guide. The Handbook is an especially useful tool for an archaeological exploration of Rome. Using the internal links in the text you can quickly return to key passages, characters, clarify unfamiliar words and deepen political, military and social aspects of events. There is no shortage of curiosities and anecdotes. The Handbook never veers from the facts and is always reliably historical. The date abbreviations BC (before Christ) and AD (anno domini) are used throughout the book as they are most familiar to the author. The author apologizes for she is well aware of the modern terms BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) used by the academic community and NASA. These modern terms actually reflect historical correctness given that Christ’s birth date should be around 6 BCE. And why is that? Well, you’ll just have to check it out in the Handbook.

Political Science Abstracts is an annual supplement to the Political Science, Government, and Public Policy Series of The Universal Reference System, which was first published in 1967. All back issues are still available.