Political and Social Philosophy: Traditional and Contemporary Readings is an anthology of some of the greatest
Political
thought of all time. The author and philosophers
represented in this volume range from the ancient Greeks Plato and Aristotle to William F. Buckley, Jr. and Tom Hayden. In between are writings representative of just about every kind of
political thought ever expressed in the western world.
In addition to such seminal works on political theory as Nicolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, there are lesser known, but equally insightful writers such as Brian Barry and Gajo Petrovic. Barry’s piece The Public Interest takes up the point of view that arguing to the public interest over concrete issues often is a relevant to those very conrete issues being faced by industrialized nations. Petrovic’s contribution Man and Freedom proves that Marxism and freedom are not exclusionary despite what the masses of Americans might think.
Although the biggies are well represented here, including Hobbes, Hume and Locke; Jefferson, Marx and Nietzsche; and Lenin, Mao and Gandhi, the primary reason to hunt this book down are those trenchant writings by authors you may not know as well. For instance, there are several selections from Jeremy Bentham, a big name, yes, but one mostly lost to history except for college students. His ideas are fascinating to say the least, even if they may scare the heebie jeebies out of you.
Probably the least read essay that should be the most read essay is Herbert Marcuse’s Ethics and Revolution. Marcuse emerged as one of the great social theorists of recent times and this is Marcuse at his most perceptive. A great move would be to read Marcuse’s essay first, then move back to read Rousseau’s Social Contract, then go forward to Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience.
After getting those into your head, everything else will into place in a way it may not have before. Regardless of your political affiliation, you can find something in this book that formulated your views whether you were aware of it or not.