Discusses the many sources and instruments of power, and explains how power is utilized by organizations and businesses and in economics and political and military life.

Michael Mann is one of the most influential sociologists of recent decades. His work has had a major impact in sociology, history, political science, international relations and other social science disciplines. His main work, The Sources of Social Power, of which two of three volumes have been completed, provides an all-encompassing account of the history of power from the beginnings of stratified societies to present day. Recently he has published two major works, Fascists and The Dark Side of Democracy. Yet unlike other contemporary social thinkers, Mann's work has not, until now, been systematically and critically assessed. This volume assembles a group of distinguished scholars to take stock, both of Mann's overall method and of his account of particular periods and historical cases. It also contains Mann's reply where he answers his critics and forcefully restates his position. This is a unique and provocative study for scholars and students alike.

Most books about power only deal with the societal formula of the few having power over the enormously larger powerless masses, and which is mistaken as the so-called "natural order of power." But it is not well understood that this formula also requires social conditioning measures aimed at perpetuating the continuing depowerment of the powerless so that the powerful CAN have power over them. This in turn requires the societal suppression and secretizing of all knowledge about the superlative human powers known to exist in individuals of the human species, but which are socially forced into latency in most. It is broadly understood that power and secrecy go together, but the scope of the "web" of secrets surrounding the larger nature of human power(s) is surprising. As discussed in this Volume I of SECRETS OF POWER, empowerment is difficult if the larger panorama of societal power and depowerment are not more full understood.

In this essential rereading of Spinoza's (1632-1677) philosophical and political writings, Negri positions this thinker within the historical context of the development of the modern state and its attendant political economy. Through a close examination of Spinoza, Negri reveals turn as unique among his contemporaries for his nondialectical approach to social organization in a bourgeois age.

This text is a study of the public/private law divide in the common law tradition. Its starting point is that substantive duties of legality, fairness and rationality are imposed by the common law on bodies discharging public functions, but not always on bodies discharging 'private' functions.

A collection of essential essays on political theories of power What is power? Is it, as Betrand Russell suggested, "the production of intended effects", or is it the capacity to produce them? And which effects count? Or is Max Weber's definition of power as "the probability that an actor in a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance" more accurate. What are the outcomes of power and who holds it? These are some of the fundamental questions answered in this colection of classic views of power. Steven Luke's lucid and accessible introduction on the nature of power leads to pieces by Bertrand Russell, Max Weber, Robert Dahl, Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas, Talcott Parsons, Nicos Polantzas, Alvin I. Goldman, Georg Simmel, J. K. Galbraith, Michel Foucault, Gerhard Lenski and Raymond Aron. The book thus provides students of politics and sociology with all the most important readings in a key area of political theory.

What is fascism? By focusing on the concrete: what the fascists did, rather than what they said, the esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question. From the first violent uniformed bands beating up “enemies of the state,” through Mussolini’s rise to power, to Germany’s fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton shows clearly why fascists came to power in some countries and not others, and explores whether fascism could exist outside the early-twentieth-century European setting in which it emerged. "A deeply intelligent and very readable book. . . . Historical analysis at its best." –The Economist The Anatomy of Fascism will have a lasting impact on our understanding of modern European history, just as Paxton’s classic Vichy France redefined our vision of World War II. Based on a lifetime of research, this compelling and important book transforms our knowledge of fascism–“the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.”

Political power is a great enigma in contemporary China, as it operates often behind the closed doors of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the recent decades of reform, it has changed greatly in many ways while retaining its authoritarian nature. How do Chinese leaders rule this huge country? How does the regime communicate with its bureaucracies and ordinary citizens? What happened to politics in recent decades as economic marketisation and social liberalisation formed the major currents of the nation's developments? And, what are the implications of all these domestic affairs to China's foreign relations and vice versa? This volume is an intellectual exercise to explore these questions that have for a long time occupied a central position in academic explorations of Chinese politics. The book covers topics such as state-enterprise relationship (a fundamental indicator of the political economy of Chinese reform), central-local relations (an issue that has perplexed the power arrangements in China for over a thousand years in general and since 1949 in particular), relations between popular participation and political reform, and the relationship between individual liberty and political democracy (a classic question in political theory that frames political debates in contemporary China). These collected essays give the reader an insightful peek behind the closed doors of Chinese politics and governance.