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Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Expanded Edition)
By Sheldon S. Wolin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Number Of Pages: 784
Publication Date: 2006-01-09
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0691126275
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780691126272
Product Description:
This is a significantly expanded edition of one of the greatest works of modern political theory. Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. This new edition retains intact the original ten chapters about political thinkers from Plato to Mill, and adds seven chapters about theorists from Marx and Nietzsche to Rawls and the postmodernists. The new chapters, which show how thinkers have grappled with the immense possibilities and dangers of modern power, are themselves a major theoretical statement. They culminate in Wolin's remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form, "inverted totalitarianism," in which economic rather than political power is dangerously dominant. In this new edition, the book that helped to define political theory in the late twentieth century should energize, enlighten, and provoke generations of scholars to come.
Wolin originally wrote Politics and Vision to challenge the idea that political analysis should consist simply of the neutral observation of objective reality. He argues that political thinkers must also rely on creative vision. Wolin shows that great theorists have been driven to shape politics to some vision of the Good that lies outside the existing political order. As he tells it, the history of theory is thus, in part, the story of changing assumptions about the Good.
In the new chapters, Wolin displays all the energy and flair, the command of detail and of grand historical developments, that he brought to this story forty years ago. This is a work of immense talent and intense thought, an intellectual achievement that will endure.
Summary: What is "political"?
Rating: 5
Of course, this is perhaps the foremost book on political theory of the last fifty years - basically required reading for anyone with claims to being a political philosopher or interpreter. It is an examination of the nature of political thinking and its connectedness and importance with regard to economics, religion, and the broader society from the time of Plato to the Bush II administration.
This expanded version of the book consists of seventeen somewhat independent chapters devoted to leading political thinkers, such as Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche, and to such concepts as liberalism, community, democracy, and totalitarianism. Given the nature of the subjects the reading is slow going, though quite informative. There does seem to be a certain amount of needless repetition, even within chapters, and the overall affect is more one of fragmentation than of a unifying thread. For most, undoubtedly multiple readings would be required for full assimilation.
There will be no attempt here to offer any sort of critique of the substance of the book - a large project to be sure. There is an interesting chapter that dissects the political writings of John Rawls, the leading political theorist of the late twentieth century. The impact of Superpower and corporate dominance on the possibilities for democratic action in the current era is explored. It is clear that the notion of what is political is ever-changing and is not without its complexities.
Summary: Essential Reading
Rating: 5
This eminently readable work can be picked up and put down as time permits--no small virtue in a busy time, and essential for a proper education in political ideas that still very much shape our world. Without making many explicit comparisons or contrasts, Wolin somehow manages to suggest numerous points of intersection between our political dilemmas today and those that beset people thousands of years ago. This is an erudite, witty, accessible book. It should be required reading for all Americans--especially for those of us who like to shoot our mouths off about liberals, conservatives, and other such oddities in the common bestiary. I wouldn't let my copy go for five times what I paid for it.
Summary: magisterial political philosophy
Rating: 5
This is an exemplary work that engages the entire history of political thought in the Western tradition. Wolin has added four significant chapters to the original 1960 book and one addresses postmodernism looking at the Nietzschean background to our epoch. For any one doing serious scholarly work in political thoery, philosophy, critical theory, history this book is a necessary possession. For the rest, probably the best general work of Western political thought available.
Summary: Deep survey of political thought in the West
Rating: 5
This book is so rich and it is about so many things that it is difficult to praise in a brief blurb, but suffice it to say that it presents the development of political thinking since Plato to Roman political thought in the age of the Empire to the rise of the Catholic Church to the Reformation, to the reawakening of Classical theory in Machiavelli and onward to the development of modern ideas of the state, of order and security, representation of the polity, democracy, and authoritarianism. Each chapter is written like an individual essay, but with a depth unmatched my most other books on the subject. Perhaps Q. Skinner's development of western political thought is an approximation.
This book is not just a brief summary of the major figures and ideas; it is a discursis of THE tradition, THE language, THE development of theories AND praxis of human beings applying reason to organize themselves into groups for better protection against scarcity and death. Sexy, hmm?!
It would be interesting to read an equivalent book on the Eastern political tradition, as China is not covered here.
But otherwise, I cannot praise this book more highly. It is one to reread every year or so. When you have some free time that is. And after you reread Hamlet. Or maybe you're better off rereading Robinson Crusoe. Same question, different answer, anyhow.
Summary: Visionary
Rating: 5
That there are people waiting to buy our used copies of this book is a testiment in itself: this is simply a classic of political thought, one which has enriched political theorizing and instructed many a pupil in our traditions over the years. However, Wolin is working on a new edition which will (according to him), "repair" an "error" in this text, whatever it is.
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