Accessibly written and assuming no previous knowledge of the subject, it encourages the reader tothink clearly and critically about the leading political questions of our time.Miller first investigates how political philosophy tackles basic ethical questions such as 'how should we live together in society?' He furthermore looks at political authority, discusses the reasons society needs politics in the first place, explores the limitations of politics, and asks if thereare areas of life that shouldn't be governed by politics. Moreover, he explores the connections between political authority and justice, a constant theme in political philosophy, and the ways in which social justice can be used to regulate rather than destroy a market economy.In his travels through this realm, Miller covers why nations are the natural units of government and wonders if the rise of multiculturalism and transnational co-operation will change all this, and asks in the end if we will ever see the formation of a world government.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundredsof key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton PressClassic treatise on the importance of maintaining the rights of the individual in the face of expanding state control manipulated by organized pressure groups.

    This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early Enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was such an influence on those who framed the American Constitution. Fully annotated, this edition focuses on Montesquieu's use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than on those opening passages toward which critical energies have traditionally been devoted. A select bibliography and chronology are also provided.

    Professor Gellner asserts here that a society's affluence and economic growth depend on innovation, occupational mobility, the effectiveness of the mass media, universal literacy, and an all-embracing educational system based on a shared, standard idiom. These factors, taken together, govern the relationship between culture and the state. Political units that do not conform to the principle, one state, one culture feel the strain in the form of nationalistic activity.

    From East Timor to Waco, he has exposed some of the most egregious cases of political corruption, corporate fraud, and financial manipulation in the US and abroad. His uncanny investigative skills as well as his no-holds-barred style have made him an anathema among magnates on four continents and a living legend among his colleagues and his devoted readership. This excitingcollection, now revised and updated, brings together some of Palast's most powerful writing of the past decade. Included here are his celebrated Washington Post expose on Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris's stealing of the presidential election in Florida, and recent stories on George W. Bush's payoffs to corporate cronies, the payola behind Hillary Clinton, and the faux energy crisis. Also included in this volume are new and previously unpublished material, television transcripts, photographs, and letters.

    Leading political theorist Nancy Fraser, in conversation with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar Sunkara, dissects neoliberalism's current crisis and argues that we might wrest new futures from its ruins.The global political, ecological, economic, and social breakdown--symbolized, but not caused, by Trump's election--has destroyed faith that neoliberal capitalism is beneficial to the majority. Fraser explores how this faith was built through the late twentieth century by balancing two central tenets: recognition (who deserves rights) and distribution (who deserves income). When these began to fray, new forms of outsider populist politics emerged on the left and the right. These, Fraser argues, are symptoms of the larger crisis of hegemony for neoliberalism, a moment when, as Gramsci had it, "the old is dying and the new cannot be born."Explored further in an accompanying interview with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar Sunkara, Fraser argues that we now have the opportunity to build progressive populism into an emancipatory social force, one that can claim a new hegemony.

    In these twenty-nine interviews, Said addresses everything from Palestine to Pavarotti, from his nomadic upbringing under colonial rule to his politically active and often controversial life in America, and reflects on Austen, Beckett, Conrad, Naipaul, Mahfouz and Rushdie as well as fellow critics Bloom, Derrida and Foucault. Said speaks here with his usual candour, acuity and eloquence - confirming that he was in his lifetime among the truly most important intellects of our century.

    It gives moral legitimacy to the state. It makes limited forms of dissent and incremental change possible. The liberal class posits itself as the conscience of the nation. It permits us, through its appeal to public virtues and the public good, to define ourselves as a good and noble people. Most importantly, on behalf of the power elite the liberal class serves as bulwarks against radical movements by offering a safety valve for popular frustrations and discontentment by discrediting those who talk of profound structural change. Once this class loses its social and political role then the delicate fabric of a democracy breaks down and the liberal class, along with the values it espouses, becomes an object of ridicule and hatred. The door that has been opened to proto-fascists has been opened by a bankrupt liberalism The Death of the Liberal Class examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues there are five pillars of the liberal establishment – the press, liberal religious institutions, labor unions, universities and the Democratic Party— and that each of these institutions, more concerned with status and privilege than justice and progress, sold out the constituents they represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.

    "We are seeing an explosion among college students committed to the ideas of liberty -- there's no other word to describe it," says Palmer. "And today's students are not only interested in discussing these ideas, they want to do something about it. That's why this new book so strongly represents the voices of today's student leaders, some very impressive young people who have developed their own vision for freedom, one that transcends old political divides, and who know how to get organized and to do something constructive to make their vision happen." Dr. Palmer will be traveling the U.S. and internationally for book events and is available for interview upon request. As with previous editions in the same series, the books are not only recommended reading for students, many think tanks and business organizations host book events attracting politicos, professionals, academics, and journalists to discuss the ideas in the book. --The Atlas Economic Research Foundation

    Carbon Democracy tells a more complex story, arguing that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy.Timothy Mitchell begins with the history of coal power to tell a radical new story about the rise of democracy. Coal was a source of energy so open to disruption that oligarchies in the West became vulnerable for the first time to mass demands for democracy. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the development of cheap and abundant energy from oil, most notably from the Middle East, offered a means to reduce this vulnerability to democratic pressures. The abundance of oil made it possible for the first time in history to reorganize political life around the management of something now called “the economy” and the promise of its infinite growth. The politics of the West became dependent on an undemocratic Middle East.In the twenty-first century, the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable. Foreign intervention and military rule are faltering in the Middle East, while governments everywhere appear incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy—the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order.In making the production of energy the central force shaping the democratic age, Carbon Democracy rethinks the history of energy, the politics of nature, the theory of democracy, and the place of the Middle East in our common world.

    But what is the third way? Supporters of the notion haven't been able to agree, and critics deny the possibility altogether. Anthony Giddens shows that developing a third way is not only a possibility but a necessity in modern politics.

    But Vidal was also a terrific conversationalist; indeed Dick Cavett once described him as “the best talker since Oscar Wilde.” Vidal was never more eloquent, or caustic, than when let loose on his favorite topic: the history and politics of the United States.This book is made up from four interviews conducted with his long-time interlocutor, the writer and radio host Jon Wiener, in which Vidal grapples with matters evidently close to his heart: the history of the American Empire, the rise of the National Security State, and his own life in politics, both as a commentator and candidate.The interviews cover a twenty-year span, from 1988 to 2008, when Vidal was at the height of his powers. His extraordinary facility for developing an argument, tracing connections between past and present, and drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of America’s place in the world, are all on full display. And, of course, it being Gore Vidal, an ample sprinkling of gloriously acerbic one-liners is also provided.

    What poststructuralists like Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-Fran�ois Lyotard offer instead is a political philosophy that can be called tactical: it emphasizes that power emerges from many different sources and operates along many different registers. This approach has roots in traditional anarchist thought, which sees the social and political field as a network of intertwined practices with overlapping political effects. The poststructuralist approach, however, eschews two questionable assumptions of anarchism, that human beings have an (essentially benign) essence and that power is always repressive, never productive.After positioning poststructuralist political thought against the background of Marxism and the traditional anarchism of Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Proudhon, Todd May shows what a tactical political philosophy like anarchism looks like shorn of its humanist commitments--namely, a poststructuralist anarchism. The book concludes with a defense, contra Habermas and Critical Theory, of poststructuralist political thought as having a metaethical structure allowing for positive ethical commitments.

    With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new world order, this provocative manifesto is more relevant than ever.

    Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Greeks? The answer: inequality. This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show how almost everything—-from life expectancy to depression levels, violence to illiteracy-—is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is. Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit Level has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world.