This engaging introduction shows how ideas of aristocracy originated in ancient times, were transformed in the middle ages, and have only fallen apart over the last two centuries.

Examining in detail the work of consecration carried out by elite education systems, Bourdieu analyzes the distinctive forms of power—political, intellectual, bureaucratic, and economic—by means of which contemporary societies are governed.

“Citizenship is salvation,” preached Noble Drew Ali, leader of the Moorish Science Temple of America in the early twentieth century. Ali’s message was an aspirational call for black Americans to undertake a struggle for recognition from the state, one that would both ensure protection for all Americans through rights guaranteed by the law and correct the unjust implementation of law that prevailed in the racially segregated United States. Ali and his followers took on this mission of citizenship as a religious calling, working to carve out a place for themselves in American democracy and to bring about a society that lived up to what they considered the sacred purpose of the law. In The Aliites, Spencer Dew traces the history and impact of Ali’s radical fusion of law and faith. Dew uncovers the influence of Ali’s teachings, including the many movements they inspired. As Dew shows, Ali’s teachings demonstrate an implicit yet critical component of the American approach to law: that it should express our highest ideals for society, even if it is rarely perfect in practice. Examining this robustly creative yet largely overlooked lineage of African American religious thought, Dew provides a window onto religion, race, citizenship, and law in America.

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature. In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling” and “fascinating,” Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum. Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness”), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.

The classic book that restored the voices of ordinary people to our understanding of the French Revolution The Coming of the French Revolution remains essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of this great turning point in the formation of the modern world. First published in 1939 on the eve of the Second World War and suppressed by the Vichy government, this classic work explains what happened in France in 1789, the first year of the French Revolution. Georges Lefebvre wrote history “from below”—a Marxist approach—and in this book he places the peasantry at the center of his analysis, emphasizing the class struggles in France and the significant role they played in the coming of the revolution. Eloquently translated by the historian R. R. Palmer and featuring an introduction by Timothy Tackett that provides a concise intellectual biography of Lefebvre and a critical appraisal of the book, this Princeton Classics edition offers perennial insights into democracy, dictatorship, and insurrection.

Catherine the Great's treatment of the Russian nobility has usually been regarded as dictated by court politics or her personal predilections. Citing new archival sources, Robert Jones shows that her redefinition and reorganization of the Russian nobility were in fact motivated by reasons of state. In 1762, Peter III had "emancipated" the nobility from obligatory state service, and in the early years of her reign Catherine attempted to govern Russia through a bureaucratic administration. Although this threatened the provincial nobles with social and economic decline, the government was oblivious to their plight until the peasant revolt of 1773-1775 convinced Catherine that she could not provide Russia with a government capable of defending and promoting the national interest without them. This realization led to the formation of a new alliance between the state and the nobility, based on a mutual fear of peasant revolt and expressed first in the provincial reforms of 1775 and finally in Catherine's Charter to the Nobility of 1785. In the 1760's Catherine had hoped to forestall peasant uprisings by improving the lot of the serfs and limiting the authority of the serf-owners. But faced with the choice between controlling the serfs in a way open to abuses and eliminating abuses in a way that might lead to loss of control, Catherine chose the former. Her Charter committed the state to the preservation of serfdom and the reactionary ancien régime. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.