Political Philosophy

Hannah Arendt's penetrating observations on the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, have been fundamental to our understanding of our political landscape. On Revolution is her classic exploration of a phenomenon that has reshaped the globe. From the 18th-century rebellions in America and France to the explosive changes of the 20th century, Arendt traces the changing face of revolution and its relationship to war while underscoring the crucial role such events will play in the future.

Hannah Arendt's insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future, Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future.

The Law was originally published as a pamphlet in French in 1850 by Frederic Bastiat. It is his most famous work and was written two years after the third French Revolution of 1848. It defines, through development, a just system of laws and then demonstrates how such law facilitates a free society. Bastiat was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly.

The cosmopolitan political tradition in Western thought begins with the Greek Cynic Diogenes, who, when asked where he came from, responded that he was a citizen of the world. Rather than declaring his lineage, city, social class, or gender, he defined himself as a human being, implicitly asserting the equal worth of all human beings. Nussbaum pursues this "noble but flawed" vision of world citizenship as it finds expression in figures of Greco-Roman antiquity, Hugo Grotius in the 17th century, Adam Smith during the 18th century, and various contemporary thinkers.

The ancient biographer and essayist Plutarch thought deeply about the leadership qualities of the eminent Greeks and Romans he profiled in his famous - and massive - Lives, including politicians and generals such as Pericles, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony. Luckily for us, Plutarch distilled what he learned about wise leadership in a handful of essays, which are filled with essential lessons for experienced and aspiring leaders in any field today.

Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last 70 years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging. The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times.

Here is the final book of unparalleled historian Tony Judt. Where Judt’s masterpiece Postwar redefined the history of modern Europe by uniting the stories of its eastern and western halves, Thinking the Twentieth Century unites the century’s conflicted intellectual history into a single soaring narrative. The 20th century comes to life as the age of ideas - a time when, for good or for ill, the thoughts of the few reigned over the lives of the many.

The Constitution of Liberty is considered Hayek's classic statement on the ideals of freedom and liberty, ideals that he believes have guided - and must continue to guide - the growth of Western civilization. Here, Hayek defends the principles of a free society, casting a skeptical eye on the growth of the welfare state and examining the challenges to freedom posed by an ever-expanding government.

The award-winning political theorist Yoram Hazony argues that the best hope for Western democracy is a return to the empiricist, religious, and nationalist traditions of America and Britain—the conservative traditions that brought greatness to the English-speaking nations and became the model for national freedom for the entire world. Conservatism: A Rediscovery explains how Anglo-American conservatism became a distinctive alternative to divine-right monarchy, Puritan theocracy, and liberal revolution.

In the years between her first public lecture in 1961 and her last in 1981, Ayn Rand spoke and wrote about topics as different as education, medicine, Vietnam, and the death of Marilyn Monroe. In The Voice of Reason, these pieces are gathered together in book form for the first time. Written in the last decades of Rand's life, they reflect a life lived on principle, a probing mind, and a passionate intensity. With them are five essays by Leonard Peikoff, Rand's longtime associate and literary executor.

Publiée en 1516, "L'Utopie" est un traité sur la meilleure forme de constitution politique, déguisé en une fiction : un récit de voyage vers l'île d'Utopie, inspiré de la récente découverte du Nouveau Monde. Dans cet éloge crypté et paradoxal de l'humanisme, sur le modèle de "La République" de Platon, Thomas More nous invite à regarder l'Ancien Monde d'un œil neuf, depuis l'île d'Utopie.

When parents send their children off to college, Mom and Dad hope they'll return more cultivated, knowledgeable, and astute - able to see issues from all points of view. But, according to Ben Shapiro, there's only one view allowed on most college campuses: a rabid brand of liberalism that must be swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

Margaret Wheatley proposes that citizens band together with their colleagues and friends to create the solutions for social change, both locally and globally, that are so badly needed. Such change will not come from governments or corporations but from the ageless process of thinking together in conversation. Turning to One Another encourages this process.

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. Authors Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail.

This audio course examines the major periods in the history of Western political thought and questions the political and social order. It considers the ways in which thinkers have responded to the particular political problems of their day, and the ways in which they contribute to a broader conversation about human goods and needs, justice, democracy, and the proper relationship of the individual to the state. One aim will be to understand the strengths and weaknesses of various regimes and philosophical approaches in order to gain a critical perspective on our own.

Passing from lip to ear, the philosophies of Hermes Trismegistus have been passed down through thousands of years. Listen as this tradition continues in this audio compilation of The Kybalion, Corpus Hermeticum, The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, and The Life and Teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. This unprecedented collection will provide the foundation of the Hermetic Philosophy.

As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.

The foundation for all modern economic thought and political economy, The Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of Scottish economist Adam Smith, who introduces the world to the very idea of economics and capitalism in the modern sense of the words.

Because We Say So presents more than 30 concise, forceful commentaries on US politics and global power. Written between 2011 and 2015, Noam Chomsky's arguments forge a persuasive counternarrative to official accounts of US politics and policies during global crisis.

This classic, definitive account of totalitarianism traces the emergence of modern racism as an "ideological weapon for imperialism", beginning with the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 19th century and continuing through the New Imperialism period from 1884 to World War I.