Political Philosophy

A lively and accessible guide to understanding rhetoric by the world class English and Law professor and bestselling author of How to Write a Sentence. Filled with the wit and observational prowess that shaped Stanley Fish’s acclaimed bestseller How to Write a Sentence, Winning Arguments...

The Prince was the first great work of modern political and historical analysis, but it suffered from a tragic flaw: Machiavelli chose as his "hero" Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, who, unknown to the author, employed murder as one of his tools of statecraft. The Prince has been studied by Hitler, Stalin, Richelieu, Bismarck, and Frederick the Great, among others.

Reparations for slavery have become a reinvigorated topic for public debate over the last decade. Most theorizing about reparations treats it as a social justice project—either rooted in reconciliatory justice focused on making amends in the present; or, they focus on the past, emphasizing restitution for historical wrongs. Olúfemi O. Táiwò argues that neither approach is optimal, and advances a different case for reparations—one rooted in a hopeful future that tackles the issue of climate change head on, with distributive justice at its core.

Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon - one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, Jacoby surveys an antirationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought".

For the last 20 years, John Corvino - widely known as the author of the weekly column "The Gay Moralist" - has traversed the country responding to moral and religious arguments against same-sex relationships. In this timely audiobook, he shares that experience - addressing the standard objections to homosexuality and offering insight into the culture wars more generally. Is homosexuality unnatural? Does the Bible condemn it? Are people born gay (and should it matter either way)? Corvino approaches such questions with precision, sensitivity, and good humor.

In The Republic, Plato tackles the big issues of the state and the individual: how the state should be ruled, and by whom; and the way the individual should lead his life - and why. The lively quality of the dialogue can be clearly appreciated in this new translation by Tom Griffith.

Martin Luther King Jr. may be America's most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political thought remains underappreciated. In To Shape a New World, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry state that the marginalization of King's ideas reflects a romantic consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservative - an effort not at radical reform but at "living up to" enduring ideals laid down by the nation's founders.

Democracy, free thought and expression, religious tolerance, individual liberty, political self-determination of peoples, sexual and racial equality - these values have firmly entered the mainstream in the decades since they were enshrined in the 1948 U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. But if these ideals no longer seem radical today, their origin was very radical indeed - far more so than most historians have been willing to recognize.

Was macht einen gerechten Staat aus? Was schafft Wohlstand, was Frieden, was müssen wir Menschen lernen? Unsere Box vereint diese Grundlagentexte der politischen Theorie: "Die Kunst des Krieges" (Sun Tzu), "Die Apologie des Sokrates" (Platon), "Der Fürst" (N. Machiavelli), "Der Weg zum Wohlstand" (B. Franklin), "Was ist Aufklärung?" (I. Kant), "Der hessische Landbote" (G. Büchner), "Das kommunistische Manifest" (K. Marx / F. Engels), "Die protestantische Ethik" (M. Weber).

An audacious and accessible guide to feminist philosophy - its origins, its key ideas, and its latest directions. Think Like a Feminist is an irreverent yet rigorous primer that unpacks more than 200 years of feminist thought.

"The Prince" is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, "De Principatibus" ("Of Principalities"). However, the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was done with the permission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but "long before then, in fact since the first appearance of The Prince in manuscript, controversy had swirled about his writings".

Enjoy this InAudio unabridged presentation of The Art of War, a fresh new audiobook of the classic military philosophy book. Whether you’re looking to conquer your enemies or fight business battles, The Art of War is a time-tested and influential classic for gaining competitive advantage.

This book is a profound search for a theory of social change. Through clearing away the cobwebs of revolutionary socialism, it renews the fight for the ending of capitalism and the construction of a new, fairer world. After a century of failed attempts by radical projects, the concept of revolution itself is in crisis.

في كتاب الحداثة والسياسة لأحمد المسلماني: يجيب كتاب "الحداثة والسياسة" عن سؤال: كيف يفكر العالم؟ .. كيف كان يفكر في العقود الأخيرة؟ وكيف يفكر الآن؟ وكيف يفكر بشأن المستقبل؟ هذا كتاب فكري موسوعي.. تمتد قضاياه من السياسة إلى الفلسفة، ومن التاريخ إلى الفيزياء، ومن العلم إلى القوة. إن الثراء الكبير الذي يتمتع به هذا الكتاب، والأسلوب السهل الممتنع الذي يتسم به مؤلفه.. يجعله أحد أكثر الكتب توعيةً وتثقيفًا، ثم إنه من أكثرها متعةً وتشويقًا.

Dignity represents the inherent and equal worth of each one of us. It is how we think about the value of our lives. It is how we think about justice, and about the injustices that cause people to struggle and suffer. In Dignity in America, Erin Daly explores how we can resolve the social conflicts that divide us as a nation by transforming them under the lens of human dignity.

Witty, acerbic, hard-hitting, and timely, Keith Olbermann's Donald Trump commentaries come adapted from his hit GQ series The Resistance. Since Donald Trump's presidential nomination, Keith Olbermann has emerged as one of the web's most popular anti-Trump screedists—each installment of his...

Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates, who questions him about the nature of his art. Socrates is especially curious about how Hippias would define beauty. They agree that beauty makes all beautiful things beautiful, but when Socrates presses him to say precisely what he means, Hippias is unable to deliver such a definition.

After more than 2,300 years, the Greek philosopher Aristotle still remains one of the most influential thinkers who has ever lived. There was hardly any field of human knowledge in existence during his day in which he did not make a major contribution. Additionally, he probed areas which were never before examined. Indeed, one could make the claim that no individual person has ever known as much about this world as Aristotle. His analyses of zoology and logic paved the way for modern forensic techniques, and for which every scientist down to this day owes him a debt of gratitude.

There was a time when liberalism was an ism like any other, but that time, writes Michael Walzer, is gone. “Liberal” now conveys not a specific ideology but a moral stance, so the word is best conceived not as a noun but as an adjective—one is a “liberal democrat” or a “liberal nationalist.” Walzer itemizes the characteristics described by “liberal” in an inventory of his own deepest political and moral commitments—among other things, to the principle of equality, to the rule of law, and to a pluralism that is both political and cultural.

Is socialism desirable? Is it even possible? In this concise book, one of the world's leading political philosophers presents with clarity and wit a compelling moral case for socialism and argues that the obstacles in its way are exaggerated. There are times, G. A. Cohen notes, when we all behave like socialists.