Now greatly expanded in its second edition, Political
Philosophy: The Essential Texts is ideal for survey
courses in social and political philosophy. Offering
coverage from antiquity to the present, this
historically organized collection presents the most
significant works from nearly 2,500 years of political
philosophy. It moves from classical thought (Plato,
Aristotle) through the medieval period (Augustine,
Aquinas) to modern perspectives (Machiavelli, Hobbes,
Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Smith, Hamilton and Madison,
Kant). The book includes work from major
nineteenth-century thinkers (Hegel, Marx and Engels,
Mill) and twentieth-century theorists (Rawls, Nozick,
Charles Taylor, Foucault, Habermas, Virginia Held) and
also presents a variety of notable documents and
addresses, including The Declaration of Independence,
The Constitution of the United States, The Declaration
of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and speeches by Pericles,
Edmund Burke, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
and Martin Luther King, Jr. The readings are substantial
or complete texts, not fragments.In addition to the new
selections noted above in bold, the second edition also
includes more essays from Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Smith,
Hamilton and Madison, Kant, and Mill. An especially
valuable feature of this volume is that the works of
each author are introduced with an engaging essay by a
leading contemporary authority. These introductions
include Richard Kraut on Plato and Aristotle; Paul J.
Weithman on Augustine and Aquinas; Roger D. Masters on
Machiavelli; Jean Hampton on Hobbes; A. John Simmons on
Locke; Joshua Cohen on Rousseau and Rawls; Donald W.
Livingston on Hume; Charles L. Griswold, Jr., on Smith;
Bernard E. Brown on Hamilton and Madison; Paul Guyer on
Kant; Steven B. Smith on Hegel; Richard Miller on Marx
and Engels; Jeremy Waldron on Mill; Thomas Christiano on
Nozick; Robert B. Talisse on Taylor; Thomas A. McCarthy
on Foucault and Habermas; and Cheshire Calhoun on
Held. |
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