Book picks similar to
Hobbes's Critique of Religion and Related Writings by Leo Strauss


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The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century


Sheri Berman - 2006
    Berman looks at the history of social democracy from its origins in the late nineteenth century to today and shows how it beat out competitors such as classical liberalism, orthodox Marxism, and its cousins, Fascism and National Socialism by solving the central challenge of modern politics - reconciling the competing needs of capitalism and democracy. Bursting on to the scene in the interwar years, the social democratic model spread across Europe after the Second World War and formed the basis of the postwar settlement. This is a study of European social democracy that rewrites the intellectual and political history of the modern era while putting contemporary debates about globalization in their proper intellectual and historical context.

The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations


Samuel P. Huntington - 1957
    Huntington challenges most of the old assumptions and ideas on the role of the military in society. Stressing the value of the military outlook for American national policy, Huntington has performed the distinctive task of developing a general theory of civil-military relations and subjecting it to rigorous historical analysis.Part One presents the general theory of the military profession, the military mind, and civilian control. Huntington analyzes the rise of the military profession in western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and compares the civil-military relations of Germany and Japan between 1870 and 1945.Part Two describes the two environmental constants of American civil-military relations, our liberal values and our conservative constitution, and then analyzes the evolution of American civil-military relations from 1789 down to 1940, focusing upon the emergence of the American military profession and the impact upon it of intellectual and political currents.Huntington describes the revolution in American civil-military relations which took place during World War II when the military emerged from their shell, assumed the leadership of the war, and adopted the attitudes of a liberal society. Part Three continues with an analysis of the problems of American civil-military relations in the era of World War II and the Korean War: the political roles of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the difference in civil-military relations between the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, the role of Congress, and the organization and functioning of the Department of Defense. Huntington concludes that Americans should reassess their liberal values on the basis of a new understanding of the conservative realism of the professional military men.

The ASEAN Miracle: A Catalyst for Peace


Kishore Mahbubani - 2017
    Why?In an era of growing cultural pessimism, many thoughtful individuals believe that different civilisations – especially Islam and the West – cannot live together in peace. The ten countries of ASEAN provide a thriving counter-example of civilizational co-existence. Here 625m people live together in peace. This miracle was delivered by ASEAN.In an era of growing economic pessimism, where many young people believe that their lives will get worse in coming decades, Southeast Asia bubbles with optimism. In an era where many thinkers predict rising geopolitical competition and tension, ASEAN regularly brings together all the world’s great powers.Stories of peace are told less frequently than stories of conflict and war. ASEAN’s imperfections make better headlines than its achievements. But in the hands of thinker and writer Kishore Mahbubani, the good news story is also a provocation and a challenge to the rest of the world."This excellent book explains, in clear and simple terms, how and why ASEAN has become one of the most successful regional organizations in the world."George Yeo"A powerful and passionate account of how, against all odds, ASEAN transformed the region and why Asia and the world need it even more today."Amitav Acharya“Kishore and I have written that the world is coming together in a Fusion of Civilisations. This book documents beautifully how ASEAN has achieved this fusion. The ASEAN story is hugely instructive and this book tells it very well.”Larry SummersKishore Mahbubani is Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and author of The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. Jeffery Sng is a writer and former diplomat based in Bangkok, co-author of A History of the Thai-Chinese.

Anarchy


Errico Malatesta - 1891
    Errico Malatesta was a warm-hearted anarchist of widespread reputation and influence, who said that he considered Anarchy the best thing he had ever writter. This now classic work was first published in 1891 and has been in continual demand ever since. Translated from the original Italian and with an introduction by Vernon Richards.

Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis


Kenneth N. Waltz - 1954
    He explores works both by classic political philosophers, such as St. Augustine, Hobbes, Kant, and Rousseau, and by modern psychologists and anthropologists to discover ideas intended to explain war among states and related prescriptions for peace.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century


Timothy Snyder - 2017
    Against all predictions, one of the most-disliked presidential candidates in history had swept the electoral college, elevating a man with open contempt for democratic norms and institutions to the height of power.Timothy Snyder is one of the most celebrated historians of the Holocaust. In his books Bloodlands and Black Earth, he has carefully dissected the events and values that enabled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the execution of their catastrophic policies. With Twenty Lessons, Snyder draws from the darkest hours of the twentieth century to provide hope for the twenty-first. As he writes, “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism and communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.”Twenty Lessons is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.

Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life


Robert N. Bellah - 1985
    Attention has been focused on forms of social organization, be it civil society, democratic communitarianism, or associative democracy, that can humanize the market and the administrative state. In their new Introduction the authors relate the argument of their book both to the current realities of American society and to the growing debate about the country's future. With this new edition one of the most influential books of recent times takes on a new immediacy.

The Iron Web


Larken Rose - 2015
    With a sinking economy at home and rising tensions abroad, fear and discontent are boiling over. The Great American Experiment is faltering. Now a new threat suddenly arises: a domestic terrorist group calling itself The Iron Web, a group bent on ending America as we know it. A new President Elect eagerly awaits his inauguration and his chance to bring peace and security back to the country. A rookie federal officer finds himself face to face with the terrorists. And a young woman who knows little, and cares even less, about politics and national affairs is cast into the center of this conflict by a cruel twist of fate. A new and drastically changed America is coming. Some will not want to see it. Some will not live to see it."

Introducing Marxism: A Graphic Guide


Rupert Woodfin - 2004
    Was Marx himself a 'Marxist'? Was his visionary promise of socialism betrayed by Marxist dictatorship? Is Marxism inevitably totalitarian? What did Marx really say? "Introducing Marxism" provides a fundamental account of Karl Marx's original philosophy, its roots in 19th century European ideology, his radical economic and social criticism of capitalism that inspired vast 20th century revolutions.

Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science: Property, Proof, and Dispute in Catalonia Around the Year 1000


Stephen Van Evera - 1997
    His helpful hints, always warmly received, grew from a handful of memos to an underground classic primer. That primer evolved into a book of how-to information about graduate study, which is essential reading for graduate students and undergraduates in political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, and history - and for their advisers.-How should we frame, assess, and apply theories in the social sciences? I am unpersuaded by the view that the prime rules of scientific method should differ between hard science and social science. Science is science.-A section on case studies shows novices the ropes.-Van Evera contends the realm of dissertations is often defined too narrowly Making and testing theories are not the only games in town.... If everyone makes and tests theories but no one ever uses them, then what are they for?-In Helpful Hints on Writing a Political Science Ph.D. Dissertation, Van Evera focuses on presentation, and on broader issues of academic strategy and tactics.-Van Evera asks how political scientists should work together as a community. All institutions and professions that face weak accountability need inner ethical rudders that define their obligations in order to stay on course.

Theories of International Relations


Scott Burchill - 1996
    The introduction explains the nature of theory and the reasons for studying international relations in a theoretically informed way. The nine chapters which follow - written by leading scholars in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the US and the UK - provide thorough examinations of each of the major approaches currently prevailing in the discipline.

Pascal's Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God


James A. Connor - 2006
    A child prodigy, Pascal made essential additions to Descartes's work at age sixteen. By age nineteen, he had invented the world's first mechanical calculator. But despite his immense contributions to modern science and mathematical thinking, it is Pascal's wager with God that set him apart from his peers as a man fully engaged with both religious and scientific pursuits.One night in 1654, Pascal had a visit from God, a mystical experience that changed his life. Struggling to explain God's existence to others, Pascal dared to apply his mathematical work to religious faith, playing dice with divinity: he argued for the existence of God, basing his position not on rigorous logical principles as did Aquinas or Anselm of Canterbury, but on outcomes—his famous wager. By applying to the existence of God the same rules that governed the existence and position of the universe itself, Pascal sounded the death knell for medieval "certainties" and paved the way for modern thinking.

Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960-1990


Allan Bloom - 1990
    In this book, current liberal theories of justice are criticized, the shortcomings of the modern university are analyzed and the works of Shakespeare, Swift and Plato are examined.

The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism


Michael Novak - 1982
    -Irving Kristol, The Public Interest

Liberty or Equality: The Challenge of Our Times


Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn - 1952
    In this treatise, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn argues that it reduced to one simple and very dangerous idea: equality of political power as embodied in democracy. He marshals the strongest possible case that democratic equality is the very basis not of liberty, as is commonly believed, but the total state.He uses national socialism as his prime example. He further argues the old notion of government by law is upheld in old monarchies, restrained by a noble elite. Aristocracy, not democracy, gave us liberty. On his side in this argument, he includes the whole of the old liberal tradition, and offers overwhelming evidence for his case. In our times, war and totalitarianism do indeed sail under the democratic flag. This book, capable of overturning most of what you thought you knew about political systems, was first published in 1952.