History of Political Thought

Democracy in Crisis

Lessons from Ancient Athens
Jeff Miller

From the storming of the Capitol and the rise of authoritarian rhetoric and politicians to the challenge of global warming, liberal democracy faces a twin crisis of legitimacy and efficacy. Democracy in Crisis points to long neglected resources from the world's first democracy - Ancient Athens - prompting us to think beyond our current practices.

Idealism & Experience

The Philosophy of Guido de Ruggiero
Bruce Haddock

Idealism & Experience: The Philosophy of Guido de Ruggiero comprises eight new critical essays, as well as English translations of five of de Ruggiero's most important shorter writings, which chart the development of his thought between 1914 and 1946.

British Idealism and International Thought

The Development of Human Rights
Nazli Pinar Kaymaz

This book gives a comprehensive account of the British Idealist approach to international relations from the 1880s to 1930s. In an attempt to historically contextualise the shifts in several British Idealists' approaches to the nature of international relations and human rights, it focuses on on the 2nd Boer War, WWI and the League of Nations.

Michael Oakeshott: Notebooks, 1922-86

Michael Oakeshott

The sixth volume in the series Michael Oakeshott: Selected Writings. From the 1920s to the 1980s Oakeshott filled dozens of notebooks with his private reflections, both personal and intellectual. Their contents range from aphorisms to miniature essays, forming a unique record of his intellectual trajectory over his entire career.

Freedom's Progress?

A History of Political Thought
Gerard Casey

Freedom's Progress is a history of Western political thought, a conceptual map as it were, tracking the fitful journey of one particular concept — liberty — through time. The book covers the full philosophical canon — from Plato to Rawls — but is written from the perspective of the libertarian tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

The Place of Michael Oakeshott in Contemporary Western and Non-Western Thought

Noël O'Sullivan

Essays by contributors from Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, India, and the USA provide a comprehensive critical assessment of the principal aspects of Oakeshott's thought that account for his contemporary relevance.

The Chamberlain Legacy

Charles Nettlefold

In this book, the author has sought to re-examine the reputations of the Chamberlains by concentrating as much on their personal lives and the motives that drove them as on the mighty political events that dominated their times. His conclusions may surprise the reader.

Lord Kames

Selected Writings
Andreas Rahmatian

Library of Scottish Philosophy volume containing selected writings of Henry Home, Lord Kames, judge, jurist and philosopher.

Giovanni Gentile and the State of Contemporary Constructivism

A Study of Actual Idealist Moral Theory
James Wakefield

Giovanni Gentile and the State of Contemporary Constructivism represents the first book-length treatment of actual idealist moral theory.

New Labour's Old Roots

Revisionist Thinkers in Labour's History
Patrick Diamond

Fully updated and revised edition of New Labour's Old Roots.

The Legendary Past

Michael Oakeshott on Imagination and Political Identity
Natalie Riendeau

The book explores Oakeshott's thought on the key role human imagination plays in relation to the political.

History as Thought and Action

The Philosophies of Croce, Gentile, de Ruggiero and Collingwood
Rik Peters

This is the first book-length study of the relationship between Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944), Guido de Ruggiero (1888-1948) and Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943).

General Will in Political Philosophy

Janusz Grygienc

This book deals with the role and place of the general will in modern and contemporary political thought.

Civil Society, Capitalism and the State

Part Two of the Liberal Socialism of T.H. Green
Colin Tyler

This book presents a critical reconstruction of the social and political facets of Thomas Hill Green's liberal socialism. It builds on Colin Tyler's The Metaphysics of Self-realisation and Freedom (2010), although it can also be read as a freestanding work.

Friendship and the Political

Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schmitt
Graham M. Smith

This book reappraises the idea of "friendship" in contemporary political thought. The author explores the possibilities for theorising friendship in modern times through an examination of three seminal thinkers: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Schmitt.

The Meanings of Michael Oakeshott's Conservatism

Corey Abel

This collection of recent scholarship on the thought of Michael Oakeshott includes essays by both distinguished and established authors as well as a fresh crop of younger talent. Together, they address the meanings of Oakeshott's conservatism through the lenses of his ideas on religion, history, and tradition.

Michael Oakeshott: Early Political Writings 1925-30

A discussion of some matters preliminary to the study of political philosophy' and 'The philosophical approach to politics
Michael Oakeshott

This volume contains two previously unpublished works, a manuscript entitled 'A Discussion of some Matters Preliminary to the Study of Political Philosophy', and the first version of a course of lectures on 'The Philosophical Approach to Politics' that Oakeshott gave between 1928 and 1930.

The Metaphysics of Self-realisation and Freedom

Part One of the Liberal Socialism of Thomas Hill Green
Colin Tyler

This first part of Colin Tyler's new critical assessment of the social and political thought of T.H. Green (1836–1882) explores the grounding that Green gives to liberal socialism.

The Legacy of Leo Strauss

Tony Burns

This volume of essays opens up the topic of Leo Strauss and the Straussians to those outside the relatively narrow circles who have been concerned with him and his followers up to now.

Columbanus

Poet, Preacher, Statesman, Saint
Carol Richards

Columbanus ("The Dove of the Church"), not to be confused with his near-contemporary Columba of Iona, was a towering figure in the religious and political life of Europe in the Dark Ages. In this lively biography of the saint, Carol Richards evokes the violent and unstable age that laid the foundations for the achievements of the Middle Ages.

Premiership

The Development, Nature and Power of the Office of the British Prime Minister
Andrew Blick

This book combines the methods of history and political science to produce theories of the development, nature and power of the premiership, and to explain the implications for present politicians and analysts.

Political Leadership in Liberal and Democratic Theory

Joseph Femia

The working hypothesis of this book is that the issue of leadership is neglected by mainstream democratic and liberal theories.

Hobbes's Behemoth

Religion and Democracy
Tomaz Mastnak

This volume contains analyses and interpretations of the Behemoth: the structure of its argument, its relation to Hobbes's other writings, and its place in its philosophical, theological, political, and religious historical context.

Moral, Social and Political Philosophy of the British Idealists

William Sweet

The British idealists of the late 19th and early 20th century are best known for their contributions to metaphysics, logic, and political philosophy. Yet they also made important contributions to social and public policy, social and moral philosophy and moral education, as shown by this volume.

The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence

Michael Oakeshott

This volume brings together for the first time over a hundred of Oakeshott's essays and reviews, written between 1926 and 1951, that until now have remained scattered through a variety of scholarly journals, periodicals and newspapers.

The Democratic Theory of Michael Oakeshott

Discourse, Contingency and the Politics of Conversation
Michael Minch

This book offers a description, explanation, and evaluation of Michael Oakeshott's democratic theory. He was not a democratic theorist as such, but as a twentieth-century English political theorist for whom liberal theory held deep importance, his thought often engaged democratic theory implicitly, and many times did so explicitly.

Vocabulary of a Modern European State

Essays and Reviews 1953-1988
Luke O'Sullivan

The Vocabulary of a Modern European State is the companion volume to The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence and completes the enterprise of gathering together Oakeshott's previously scattered essays and reviews.

Liberty, Authority, Formality

John Morrow

The essays in this volume are all inspired by the historical scholarship of J.C. Davis. Davis's analyses of groups like the Levellers and individuals like Gerrard Winstanley and Oliver Cromwell has reoriented the inquiry around the contemporary moral themes of liberty, authority and formality -- around which concepts this volume engages.

Sovereignty

History and Theory
Raia Prokhovnik

This innovative research monograph on sovereignty argues that the historical examination of the concept and the conceptual analysis of sovereignty are interdependent.

Michael Oakeshott, the Ancient Greeks, and the Philosophical Study of Politics

Eric S. Kos

This book addresses a question fundamental for Oakeshott throughout his life, which is what we are doing when we read and discuss some memorable work in the history of political thought.

Gangraena

Thomas Edwards

A facsimile of 17th century polemical work, with a modern introduction.

Quest for Civil Order

Politics, Rules and Individuality
Cheung Chor-yung

Examines four notable thinkers in the field of modern social and political theory, with a view to determining how far it is possible to create and maintain a non-coercive but sustainable political order under conditions of diversity in contemporary Western democracies.

Joseph Conrad Today

Kieron O'Hara

This book argues that the novelist Joseph Conrad's work speaks directly to us in a way that none of his contemporaries can. Conrad's scepticism, pessimism, emphasis on the importance and fragility of community, and the difficulties of escaping our history are important tools for understanding the political world in which we live.

Education and the Voice of Michael Oakeshott

Kevin Williams

The work of Michael Oakeshott has retained a striking currency in philosophical discourse about education. In the light of this continuing interest and of Oakeshott's extensive writing on so many aspects of education, it is timely that a book be published on his thinking on the subject.

Politics and Society in Scottish Thought

Shinichi Nagao

This volume illustrates the way political and social philosophers of 18th-century Scotland tried to answer the following question: 'What is, and what ought to be, the relationship between the modern market and stable, desirable social order?'

John Grote, Cambridge University and the Development of Victorian Thought

John R. Gibbins

This book answers three questions: How did John Grote develop and contribute to modern Cambridge and British philosophy? What is the significance of these contributions to modern philosophy in general and British Idealism and language philosophy in particular? How were his ideas and his idealism incorporated into the modern philosophical tradition?

Dialectics of the Self

Transcending Charles Taylor
Ian Fraser

Charles Taylor is a philosopher concerned with morality and the nature of the identity of individuals and groups in the West. This book offers an evaluation of Taylor's conception of self, and its moral and political possibilities.

Paradoxes of Power

Reflections on the Thatcher Interlude
Alfred Sherman

The book describes Sir Alfred Sherman's early relationship with Sir Keith Joseph and his own role in the formation of the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974. Sherman examines the origins and development of 'Thatcherism', but concludes that the Conservative administrations of the 1980s were, for the most part, an ‘interlude’.

Lectures in the History of Political Thought

Luke O'Sullivan

Oakeshott's memorable lectures on the history of political thought, delivered each year at the London School of Economics, are now available in print for the first time as Volume II of his Selected Writings.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Utility

Happiness in Philosophical and Economic Thought
Charles Kenny

A volume on the nature, ingredients, causes and consequences of human happiness by the father and son team of Anthony and Charles Kenny.

Putting Morality Back into Politics

Richard Ryder

Machiavelli almost succeeded in removing morality from European politics and, indeed, since his day it has sometimes been assumed that morality and politics are separate. Ryder argues that the time has come for public policies to be seen to be based upon moral objectives.

From a Necessary Evil to an Art of Contingency

Michael Oakeshott's Conception of Political Activity
Suvi Soininen

This book presents a comprehensive study of Oakeshott's conception of political activity. The author first examines Oakeshott in the contexts of liberal, conservative and Idealist thought, and then presents a detailed interpretation of the change in his conception of politics in the context of British postwar political thought.

T.H. Green's Theory of Positive Freedom

Ben Wempe

In this new and entirely revised edition of his study of Green's theory of positive freedom, Ben Wempe argues that the far-reaching and beneficial influence of Green’s political doctrine, on public policy as well as in the field of political theory, was founded on a misinterpretation of his philosophical stand.

Snake That Swallowed Its Tail

Some Contradictions in Modern Liberalism
Mark Garnett

Tracing its effects through the media, politics and the public services, the author argues that hollowed-out liberalism has helped to produce our present discontent.

Limits of Political Theory

Oakeshott's Philosophy of Civil Association
Kenneth B. McIntyre

This book examines Oakeshott's political philosophy within the context of his more general conception of philosophical understanding. The book stresses the underlying continuity of his major writings on the subject and takes seriously the implications of understanding the world in terms of modality.

Greenian Moment

Denys Leighton

This study of T.H. Green views his philosophical opus through his public life and political commitments, and it uses biography as a lens through which to examine Victorian political culture and its moral climate.

What is History? And Other Essays

Selected Writings
Luke O'Sullivan

This highly readable new collection of thirty pieces by Michael Oakeshott, almost all of which are previously unpublished, covers every decade of his intellectual career.

Michael Oakeshott on Hobbes

Ian Tregenza

While many commentators have noted the importance of Hobbes for understanding Oakeshott's thought itself, this is the first book to provide a systematic interpretation of Oakeshott’s philosophy by paying close attention to all facets of Oakeshott’s reading of Hobbes.

In Defence of Modernity

The Social Thought of Michael Oakeshott
Efraim Podoksik

Although Oakeshott's philosophy has received considerable attention, the vision which underlies it has been almost completely ignored. This vision, which is rooted in the intellectual debates of his epoch, cements his ideas into a coherent whole and provides a compelling defence of modernity.

Metaphysics, Method and Politics

The Political Philosophy of R.G.Collingwood
James Connelly

This book argues that Collingwood developed a complete political philosophy of civilization. It also demonstrates that his philosophical work comprises a unity in which there is no fundamental discontinuity between his earlier and later writings.

T.H.Green and the Development of Ethical Socialism

Matt Carter

This book uncovers the philosophical foundations of a tradition of ethical socialism best represented in the work of R.H. Tawney, tracing its roots back to the work of T.H. Green.

Liberty Option

Tibor R. Machan

The Liberty Option advances the idea that for compelling moral as well as practical reasons it is the free society -- with the rule of law founded on the principles of private property rights, its complete respect for individual sovereignty and properly limited legal authorities -- not one or another version of statism that serves justice best.

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