Fifty distinguished contributors survey the entire history of political philosophy. They consider questions about how the subject should best be studied; they examine historical periods and great theorists in their intellectual contexts; and they discuss aspects of the subject that transcend periods, such as democracy, the state, and imperialism.

This insightful Handbook reviews the key frameworks guiding political scientists and historians of political thought. Comprehensive in scope, it covers historical methodology, traditions, epochs, and classic authors and texts, spanning from ancient Greece until the nineteenth century.

How are we to understand past political thinkers? Is it a matter simply of reading their texts again and again? Do we have to relate past texts of political thought to the contexts in which ideas were composed and in which the aims of past thinkers were formulated? Or should past political theories be deconstructed so as to uncover not what their authors maintain, but what the texts reveal? In this book, theories of interpreting past political thinkers are examined and the interpretive methods of a range of theories are reviewed, including those of Hegel, Marx, Oakeshott, Collingwood, the Cambridge School, Foucault, Derrida and Gadamer. The application of these theories of interpretation to notable modern political theorists, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche and Beauvoir is then used as a way of understanding modern political thought and of assessing interpretive theories of past political thought. The result is a book which sees the history of modern political thought as more than a procession of political theories but rather as a reflection on the meaning of past political thought and its interpretation. It provides a way of reading the history of modern political thought, in which the question of interpretation matters both for understanding how we interpret the past but also for considering what it means to undertake political thinking.

Even though political philosophy has a long tradition, it is much more than the study of old and great treatises. Contemporary philosophers continue to press new arguments on old and timeless questions, but also to propose departures and innovations. The field changes over time, and new work inevitably responds both to events in the world and to the directions of thought itself. This volume includes 22 new pieces by leaders in the field on both perennial and emerging topics of keen interest to contemporary political philosophers. In addition to longstanding issues such as Authority, Equality, and Freedom, and Democracy, there are articles on less classical topics such as Race, Historical Injustice, Deliberation, Money and Politics, Global Justice, and Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory. All of the pieces combine clarity and accessibility with a top scholar's critical and original point of view. The introductory essay briefly situates this snapshot of the state of the art in a broader view of developments in political philosophy in the last 40 years, and looks forward to future developments. Students and scholars alike will find the pieces to be valuable not only surveys but as provocations to think further about the questions, puzzles, and practical problems that animate recent work in political philosophy. The issues will be of interest to many working in philosophy, political science, law, economics, and more.

This book is a critique of Cambridge School Historical Contextualism as the currently dominant mode of history of political thought, drawing upon Michael Oakeshott’s analysis of the logic of historical enquiry. While acknowledging that the early Cambridge School work represented a considerable advance towards genuinely historical histories of political thought, this work identifies two major historiographical problems that have become increasingly acute. The first is general: an insufficiently rigorous understanding of the key concept of "pastness" necessarily presupposed in historical enquiry of all kinds. The second is specific to histories of political thought: a failure to do justice to the varieties of past political thinking, especially differences between ideology and philosophy. In addressing these problems, the author offers a comprehensive account of the history of political thought that establishes the parameters not just of histories of ideological thinking but also of the much disputed character of histories of political philosophy. Since rethinking history of political thought in Oakeshottian terms requires resisting current pressures to turn history into the servant of currently felt needs, the book offers a sustained defence of the cultural value of modernist historical enquiry against its opponents. An important work for political theorists, historians of political thought and those researching intellectual history, the philosophy of history and proposed new directions in contemporary historical studies.

During the course of the twentieth century, analytic philosophy developed into the dominant philosophical tradition in the English-speaking world. In the last two decades, it has become increasingly influential in the rest of the world, from continental Europe to Latin America and Asia. At the same time there has been deepening interest in the origins and history of analytic philosophy, as analytic philosophers examine the foundations of their tradition and question many of the assumptions of their predecessors. This has led to greater historical self-consciousness among analytic philosophers and more scholarly work on the historical contexts in which analytic philosophy developed. This historical turn in analytic philosophy has been gathering pace since the 1990s, and the present volume is the most comprehensive collection of essays to date on the history of analytic philosophy. It contains state-of-the-art contributions from many of the leading scholars in the field, all of the contributions specially commissioned. The introductory essays discuss the nature and historiography of analytic philosophy, accompanied by a detailed chronology and bibliography. Part One elucidates the origins of analytic philosophy, with special emphasis on the work of Frege, Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein. Part Two explains the development of analytic philosophy, from Oxford realism and logical positivism to the most recent work in analytic philosophy, and includes essays on ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy as well as on the areas usually seen as central to analytic philosophy, such as philosophy of language and mind. Part Three explores certain key themes in the history of analytic philosophy.

This volume includes 22 new pieces by leading political philosophers, on traditional issues (such as authority and equality) and emerging issues (such as race, and money in politics). The pieces are clear and accessible will interest both students and scholars working in philosophy, political science, law, economics, and more.