Political Philosophy Books

New and Published Books

1. Tensions of Modernity

   Las Casas and His Legacy in the French Enlightenment

   By Daniel R. Brunstetter

   Series: Routledge Innovations in Political Theory

   Politics today is marked by tension between claims of universal human rights and diversity. From the war on terror to immigration, one of the major challenges facing liberalism is to understand the scope of equality in a world in which certain peoples are perceived to reject and/or violently resist...

   Published May 20th 2012 by Routledge
2. Social Humanism

   A New Metaphysics

   By Brian Ellis

   Series: Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory

   In this book, Ellis argues that moral and political objectives are not independent of one other, and so must be pursued in tandem. Social humanism is a moral and political philosophy that does just this. As a political philosophy, it justifies the implementation and maintenance of many of the...

   Published May 15th 2012 by Routledge
3. Russian Legal Culture Before and After Communism

   Criminal Justice, Politics and the Public Sphere

   By Frances Nethercott

   Series: BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies

   Following the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, and again during the Gorbachev and Yel’tsin eras, the issue of individual legal rights and freedoms occupied a central place in the reformist drive to modernize criminal justice. While in tsarist Russia the gains of legal scholars and activists in...

   Published May 14th 2012 by Routledge
4. The Mythological State and its Empire

   By David Grant

   Series: Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought

   We see the modern State as the most rational form of governing yet devised, and one which properly recognises our inherent individual rights. However, as the histories of colonialism and imprisonment reveal, it is also an intruder into the lives of generally unwilling individuals, constraining...

   Published May 14th 2012 by Routledge
5. The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations

   By Chiara Bottici, Benoît Challand

   Series: Routledge Advances in Middle East and Islamic Studies

   While globalization unifies the world, divisions re-emerge within it in the form of a spectacular separation between Islam and the West. How can it be that Huntington’s contested idea of a clash of civilizations became such a powerful political myth through which so many people look at the world?...

   Published April 30th 2012 by Routledge
6. Understanding the Political Philosophers

   From Ancient to Modern Times, 2nd Edition

   By Alan Haworth

   Understanding the Political Philosophers is an absorbing and accessible introduction to the major philosophers and core texts of western political philosophy. Organised historically - beginning with Socrates and Plato, and concluding with post-Rawlsian theory - Alan Haworth presents the key ideas...

   Published April 4th 2012 by Routledge
7. Essays on Neuroscience and Political Theory

   Thinking the Body Politic

   Edited by F. Vander Valk

   The past 20 years have seen increasingly bold claims emanating from the field of neuroscience. Advances in medical imaging, brain modelling, and interdisciplinary cognitive science have forced us to reconsider the nature of social, cultural, and political activities. This collection of essays is...

   Published March 25th 2012 by Routledge
8. Carl Schmitt

   Law as Politics, Ideology and Strategic Myth

   By Michael Salter

   Series: Nomikoi Critical Legal Thinkers

   There continues to be a remarkable revival in academic interest in Carl Schmitt's thought within politics and social theory but this is the first book to address his thought from an explicitly legal theoretical perspective. Transcending the prevailing one-sided and purely historical focus on...

   Published March 21st 2012 by Routledge-Cavendish
9. On Privacy

   By Annabelle Lever

   Series: Thinking in Action

   This book explores the Janus-faced features of privacy, and looks at their implications for the control of personal information, for sexual and reproductive freedom, and for democratic politics. It asks what, if anything, is wrong with asking women to get licenses in order to have children, given...

   Published January 12th 2012 by Routledge
10. Democracy and Pluralism

    The Political Thought of William E. Connolly

    Edited by Alan Finlayson

    Series: Routledge Innovations in Political Theory

    William E. Connolly’s political theory forms a distinct and influential contribution to contemporary debates about the nature and prospects of democratic life in the twenty-first century. His original conceptualisations of pluralism, naturalism, the politics of the body, religion, secularism and...

    Published December 29th 2011 by Routledge