Advertisement
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Politics and Vision Sheldon S. Wolin, 2012-06-01 This is a significantly expanded edition of one of the greatest works of modern political theory. Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. This new edition retains intact the original ten chapters about political thinkers from Plato to Mill, and adds seven chapters about theorists from Marx and Nietzsche to Rawls and the postmodernists. The new chapters, which show how thinkers have grappled with the immense possibilities and dangers of modern power, are themselves a major theoretical statement. They culminate in Wolin's remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form, inverted totalitarianism, in which economic rather than political power is dangerously dominant. In this new edition, the book that helped to define political theory in the late twentieth century should energize, enlighten, and provoke generations of scholars to come. Wolin originally wrote Politics and Vision to challenge the idea that political analysis should consist simply of the neutral observation of objective reality. He argues that political thinkers must also rely on creative vision. Wolin shows that great theorists have been driven to shape politics to some vision of the Good that lies outside the existing political order. As he tells it, the history of theory is thus, in part, the story of changing assumptions about the Good. In the new chapters, Wolin displays all the energy and flair, the command of detail and of grand historical developments, that he brought to this story forty years ago. This is a work of immense talent and intense thought, an intellectual achievement that will endure. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Democracy and Vision Aryeh Botwinick, William E. Connolly, 2001-07-22 American democracy faces severe challenges today, as everyday life gathers pace, national borders become increasingly porous, and commodity culture becomes more dominant. Democracy and Vision assembles a cast of prominent political theorists to consider the problems confronting political life by reviewing, assessing, and expanding on the ideas of one of the most influential political thinkers of the past forty years, Sheldon Wolin. The book consists of three sections linked by the underlying theme of Wolin's monumental effort to define ''the political'' and the conditions of democratic life. In the first, Nicholas Xenos, George Kateb, Fred Dallmayr, and Charles Taylor focus, in particular, on whether mass political participation, sustainable in times of upheaval as what Wolin aptly termed ''fugitive democracy,'' can be buoyed by political institutions during periods of stability. In the second section, Wendy Brown, Aryeh Botwinick, Melissa A. Orlie, and Anne Norton examine the relevance of Wolin's ideas to current debates about, for example, social diversity and the commercialization of culture. In the last, Stephen K. White, Kirstie M. McClure, Michael J. Shapiro, and J. Peter Euben address globalization and temporality in relation to Wolin's narrative of decline, asking, among other things, whether citizenship today must incorporate a cosmopolitan dimension. These essays--and an introduction by William Connolly that lucidly outlines Wolin's thought and the deep uncertainty about political theory in the 1960s that did much to inspire his work--offer unprecedented insights into Wolin's lament that modernity has meant the loss of the political. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Fugitive Democracy Sheldon S. Wolin, 2018-11-13 An authoritative collection of the most important writings of an influential political thinker Sheldon Wolin was one of the most influential and original political thinkers of the past fifty years. In Fugitive Democracy, the breathtaking range of Wolin’s scholarship, political commitment, and critical acumen are on full display in this authoritative and accessible collection of essays. This book brings together his most important writings, from classic essays to his late radical essays on American democracy such as Fugitive Democracy, in which he offers a controversial reinterpretation of democracy as an episodic phenomenon distinct from the routinized political management that passes for democracy today. Wolin critically engages a diverse range of political theorists, and grapples with topics such as power, modernization, the sixties, revolutionary politics, and inequality, all the while showcasing enduring commitment to writing civic-minded theoretical commentary on the most pressing political issues of the day. Fugitive Democracy offers enduring insights into many of today’s most pressing political predicaments, and introduces a whole new generation of readers to this provocative figure in contemporary political thought. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Democracy Incorporated Sheldon S. Wolin, 2017-08-29 Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms inverted totalitarianism? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a managed democracy where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. Now with a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges, Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Politics and Vision Sheldon S. Wolin, 2016-09-12 Politics and Vision is a landmark work by one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. This is a significantly expanded edition of one of the greatest works of modern political theory. Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. Substantially expanded for republication in 2004, it is both a sweeping survey of Western political thought and a powerful account of contemporary predicaments of power and democracy. In lucid and compelling prose, Sheldon Wolin offers original, subtle, and often surprising interpretations of political theorists from Plato to Rawls. Situating them historically while sounding their depths, he critically engages their diverse accounts of politics, theory, power, justice, citizenship, and institutions. The new chapters, which show how thinkers have grappled with the immense possibilities and dangers of modern power, are themselves a major theoretical statement. They culminate in Wolin’s remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form, inverted totalitarianism,“ in which economic rather than political power is dangerously dominant. In this expanded edition, the book that helped to define political theory in the late twentieth century should energize, enlighten, and provoke generations of scholars to come. Wolin originally wrote Politics and Vision to challenge the idea that political analysis should consist simply of the neutral observation of objective reality. He argues that political thinkers must also rely on creative vision. Wolin shows that great theorists have been driven to shape politics to some vision of the Good that lies outside the existing political order. As he tells it, the history of theory is thus, in part, the story of changing assumptions about the Good. Acclaimed as a tour de force when it was first published, and a major scholarly event when the expanded edition appeared, Politics and Vision will instruct, inspire, and provoke for generations to come. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Tocqueville between Two Worlds Sheldon S. Wolin, 2009-02-09 Alexis de Tocqueville may be the most influential political thinker in American history. He also led an unusually active and ambitious career in French politics. In this magisterial book, one of America's most important contemporary theorists draws on decades of research and thought to present the first work that fully connects Tocqueville's political and theoretical lives. In doing so, Sheldon Wolin presents sweeping new interpretations of Tocqueville's major works and of his place in intellectual history. As he traces the origins and impact of Tocqueville's ideas, Wolin also offers a profound commentary on the general trajectory of Western political life over the past two hundred years. Wolin proceeds by examining Tocqueville's key writings in light of his experiences in the troubled world of French politics. He portrays Democracy in America, for example, as a theory of discovery that emerged from Tocqueville's contrasting experiences of America and of France's constitutional monarchy. He shows us how Tocqueville used Recollections to reexamine his political commitments in light of the revolutions of 1848 and the threat of socialism. He portrays The Old Regime and the French Revolution as a work of theoretical history designed to throw light on the Bonapartist despotism he saw around him. Throughout, Wolin highlights the tensions between Tocqueville's ideas and his activities as a politician, arguing that--despite his limited political success--Tocqueville was ''perhaps the last influential theorist who can be said to have truly cared about political life.'' In the course of the book, Wolin also shows that Tocqueville struggled with many of the forces that constrain politics today, including the relentless advance of capitalism, of science and technology, and of state bureaucracy. He concludes that Tocqueville's insights and anxieties about the impotence of politics in a ''postaristocratic'' era speak directly to the challenges of our own ''postdemocratic'' age. A monumental new study of Tocqueville, this is also a rich and provocative work about the past, the present, and the future of democratic life in America and abroad. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory , 2020 |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Sheldon Wolin and Democracy Lucy Cane, 2020-06-02 Lucy Cane presents the first full-length study of Sheldon Wolin (1922-2015), an influential theorist of democracy and prescient critic of inverted totalitarianism in the United States. She traces the development of Wolin's thinking over sixty years by offering an overarching interpretation of his central preoccupations and shifts in perspective. Framed around themes of loss and mourning, this is not only an intellectual biography, but also a critical engagement of Wolin's work with democratic theory more broadly and an assessment of its value for addressing contemporary crises of democracy. Cane brings Wolin into conversation with other contemporary theorists, from Chantal Mouffe to Edward Said, as well as with his direct intellectual influences. Cane argues that his mournful tendencies continue to offer unique insight into the potential loss of local democratic cultures in an era of neoliberal precarity. At the same time, she questions whether his politics of mourning can adequately grasp the dynamics of democratic coalition-building or the value of new political movements and ideas. Sheldon Wolin and Democracyremedies a lack of interpretive studies of this key thinker, connects divergent strands of contemporary theory, and addresses urgent democratic dilemmas. It is a must read for all political theorists and others in the academy and beyond who seek to conceptualize the fate of democracy amidst the rise of right-wing populist movements in the twenty first century. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: The Presence of the Past Sheldon Wolin, 1990-08-01 The Johns Hopkins Series in Constitutional Thought.Sotirios A. Barber and Jeffery K. Tulis, Series Editors. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Politics and Vision Sheldon S. Wolin, 1960 This is a significantly expanded edition of one of the greatest works of modern political theory. Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. This new edition retains intact the original ten chapters about political thinkers from Plato to Mill, and adds seven chapters about theorists from Marx and Nietzsche to Rawls and the postmodernists. The new chapters, which show how thinkers have grappled with the immense possibilities and dangers of modern power, are themselves a major theoretical statement. They culminate in Wolin's remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form, inverted totalitarianism, in which economic rather than political power is dangerously dominant. In this new edition, the book that helped to define political theory in the late twentieth century should energize, enlighten, and provoke generations of scholars to come. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: In the Ruins of Neoliberalism Wendy Brown, 2019-07-16 Across the West, hard-right leaders are surging to power on platforms of ethno-economic nationalism, Christianity, and traditional family values. Is this phenomenon the end of neoliberalism or its monstrous offspring? In the Ruins of Neoliberalism casts the hard-right turn as animated by socioeconomically aggrieved white working- and middle-class populations but contoured by neoliberalism’s multipronged assault on democratic values. From its inception, neoliberalism flirted with authoritarian liberalism as it warred against robust democracy. It repelled social-justice claims through appeals to market freedom and morality. It sought to de-democratize the state, economy, and society and re-secure the patriarchal family. In key works of the founding neoliberal intellectuals, Wendy Brown traces the ambition to replace democratic orders with ones disciplined by markets and traditional morality and democratic states with technocratic ones. Yet plutocracy, white supremacy, politicized mass affect, indifference to truth, and extreme social disinhibition were no part of the neoliberal vision. Brown theorizes their unintentional spurring by neoliberal reason, from its attack on the value of society and its fetish of individual freedom to its legitimation of inequality. Above all, she argues, neoliberalism’s intensification of nihilism coupled with its accidental wounding of white male supremacy generates an apocalyptic populism willing to destroy the world rather than endure a future in which this supremacy disappears. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Herodotus in the Anthropocene Joel Alden Schlosser, 2020-07-15 We are living in the age of the Anthropocene, in which human activities are recognized for effecting potentially catastrophic environmental change. In this book, Joel Alden Schlosser argues that our current state of affairs calls for a creative political response, and he finds inspiration in an unexpected source: the ancient writings of the Greek historian Herodotus. Focusing on the Histories, written in the fifth century BCE, Schlosser identifies a cluster of concepts that allow us to better grasp the dynamic complexity of a world in flux. Schlosser shows that the Histories, which chronicle the interactions among the Greek city-states and their neighbors that culminated in the Persian Wars, illuminate a telling paradox: at those times when humans appear capable of exerting more influence than ever before, they must also assert collective agency to avoid their own downfall. Here, success depends on nomoi, or the culture, customs, and laws that organize human communities and make them adaptable through cooperation. Nomoi arise through sustained contact between humans and their surroundings and function best when practiced willingly and with the support of strong commitments to the equality of all participants. Thus, nomoi are the very substance of political agency and, ultimately, the key to freedom and ecological survival because they guide communities to work together to respond to challenges. An ingenious contribution to political theory, political philosophy, and ecology, Herodotus in the Anthropocene reminds us that the best perspective on the present can often be gained through the lens of the past. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Facing the Planetary William E. Connolly, 2017-02-02 In Facing the Planetary William E. Connolly expands his influential work on the politics of pluralization, capitalism, fragility, and secularism to address the complexities of climate change and to complicate notions of the Anthropocene. Focusing on planetary processes—including the ocean conveyor, glacier flows, tectonic plates, and species evolution—he combines a critical understanding of capitalism with an appreciation of how such nonhuman systems periodically change on their own. Drawing upon scientists and intellectuals such as Lynn Margulis, Michael Benton, Alfred North Whitehead, Anna Tsing, Mahatma Gandhi, Wangari Maathai, Pope Francis, Bruno Latour, and Naomi Klein, Connolly focuses on the gap between those regions creating the most climate change and those suffering most from it. He addresses the creative potential of a politics of swarming by which people in different regions and social positions coalesce to reshape dominant priorities. He also explores how those displaying spiritual affinities across differences in creed can energize a militant assemblage that is already underway. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Radical Democracy and Political Theology Jeffrey W. Robbins, 2011 Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that the people reign over the American political world like God over the universe, unwittingly casting democracy as the political instantiation of the death of God. According to Jeffrey W. Robbins, Tocqueville's assessment remains an apt observation of modern democratic power, which does not rest with a sovereign authority but operates as a diffuse social force. By linking radical democratic theory to a contemporary fascination with political theology, Robbins envisions the modern experience of democracy as a social, cultural, and political force transforming the nature of sovereign power and political authority. Robbins joins his work with Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's radical conception of network power, as well as Sheldon Wolin's notion of fugitive democracy, to fashion a political theology that captures modern democracy's social and cultural torment. This approach has profound implications not only for the nature of contemporary religious belief and practice but also for the reconceptualization of the proper relationship between religion and politics. Challenging the modern, liberal, and secular assumption of a neutral public space, Robbins conceives of a postsecular politics for contemporary society that inextricably links religion to the political. While effectively recasting the tradition of radical theology as a political theology, this book also develops a comprehensive critique of the political theology bequeathed by Carl Schmitt. It marks an original and visionary achievement by the scholar the Journal of the American Academy of Religion hailed one of the best commentators on religion and postmodernism. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire Anne Norton, 2005-01-01 This provocative book examines the teachings of political theorist Leo Strauss and the ways in which they have been appropriated, or misappropriated, by senior policymakers. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: The Terms of Political Discourse. William E. Connolly, 1993-09-12 William Connolly presents a lucid and concise defense of the thesis of essentially contested concepts that can well be read as a general introduction to political theory, as well as for its challenge to the prevailing understanding of political discourse. In Connolly's view, the language of politics is not a neutral medium that conveys ideas independently formed but an institutionalized structure of meanings that channels political thought and action in certain directions. In the new preface he pursues the implications of this perspective for a distinctive conception of ethics and democracy. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Richard Rorty Christopher J. Voparil, 2006 The first full-length work devoted to Richard Rorty from the perspective of political theory, this book offers a fresh assessment of the promise of the renowned pragmatist's project. Framing Rorty's discourse as one of meaning and persuasion rather than truth and accuracy of representation, Voparil sheds new light on many of Rorty's most misunderstood and maligned stances, including his practice of redescription and disavowal of getting it right, as well as his embrace of the novel and sentimental education. As political theory, Rorty's perspective, not unlike Sheldon Wolin's, values the imagination, the ability to come up with new metaphors and angles of vision, and is driven by a deep desire to reinvigorate a moribund and detached contemporary left. Voparil's account engages the full range of Rorty's intellectual forebears, grounding his thought in an American tradition that extends beyond the classical pragmatists to include Emerson, Whitman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and James Baldwin, in addition to chapters that trace Rorty's connection to such diverse figures as Marx, Mill, Dickens, Isaiah Berlin, and Milan Kundera. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Shock to the System Michael K. Miller, 2021-07-20 How violent events and autocratic parties trigger democratic change How do democracies emerge? Shock to the System presents a novel theory of democratization that focuses on how events like coups, wars, and elections disrupt autocratic regimes and trigger democratic change. Employing the broadest qualitative and quantitative analyses of democratization to date, Michael Miller demonstrates that more than nine in ten transitions since 1800 occur in one of two ways: countries democratize following a major violent shock or an established ruling party democratizes through elections and regains power within democracy. This framework fundamentally reorients theories on democratization by showing that violent upheavals and the preservation of autocrats in power—events typically viewed as antithetical to democracy—are in fact central to its foundation. Through in-depth examinations of 139 democratic transitions, Miller shows how democratization frequently follows both domestic shocks (coups, civil wars, and assassinations) and international shocks (defeat in war and withdrawal of an autocratic hegemon) due to autocratic insecurity and openings for opposition actors. He also shows how transitions guided by ruling parties spring from their electoral confidence in democracy. Both contexts limit the power autocrats sacrifice by accepting democratization, smoothing along the transition. Miller provides new insights into democratization’s predictors, the limited gains from events like the Arab Spring, the best routes to democratization for long-term stability, and the future of global democracy. Disputing commonly held ideas about violent events and their effects on democracy, Shock to the System offers new perspectives on how regimes are transformed. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Citizens to Lords Ellen Meiksins Wood, 2011-08-01 In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory. She traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history—a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients of dominant classes, was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wood argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. From the Ancient Greek polis of Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus and Sophocles, through the Roman Republic of Cicero and the Empire of St Paul and St Augustine, to the medieval world of Averroes, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Citizens to Lords offers a rich, dynamic exploration of thinkers and ideas that have indelibly stamped our modern world. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Why Not the Best? Jimmy Carter, 1996-08-01 Why Not the Best?, originally published in 1975, is President Carter’s presidential campaign autobiography, the book that introduced the world to Georgia governor Jimmy Carter and asked the American people to demand the best and highest standards of excellence from our government. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Liberalism and Modern Society Richard Paul Bellamy, 1992 This major new book is a wide-ranging analysis of the emergence and development of liberalism, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Bellamy examines the evolution of liberal ideas in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, discussing the work of Mill, Green, Durkeim, Weber, and Pareto, among others. He situates their theories firmly within their respective historical contexts, illustrating in this way the contingency of many of the social and moral assumptions underlying liberal thought. For modern societies have undergone profound changes in the course of the last century, and Bellamy argues that these changes have severely undermined many of the key tenets of liberalism. The final part of the book examines critically the elaboration of liberal ideas in the work of contemporary political philosophers such as Hayek, Nozick, and Rawls. Bellamy shows how the liberalisms of these writers rest on social views and moral intuitions that are now anachronistic and untenable. He maintains that only a democratic liberalism built on realistic foundations can provide a plausible political theory in the complex and pluralist societies of the modern world. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Readings in Political Philosophy Diane Jeske, Richard Fumerton, 2011-12-20 This anthology surveys important issues in Western political philosophy from Plato to the present day. Its aim is to show both the continuity and the development of political thought over time. Each unit begins with readings on the fundamental theoretical principles underlying political discourse. Theory is then connected to practice in readings on contemporary issues as well as court cases and other political documents. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: The Decline and Rise of Democracy David Stasavage, 2021-08-24 Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer--democratic practices were present in many places, at many other times, from the Americas before European conquest, to ancient Mesopotamia, to precolonial Africa. Delving into the prevalence of early democracy throughout the world, David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished--and when and why they declined--can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but also about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future.-- |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: A Decade of Upheaval Dong Guoqiang, Andrew G. Walder, 2021-02-23 Inhaltsverzeichnis: Prologue -- Factions -- Enter the Army -- Escalation -- Beijing Intervenes -- Forging Order -- Backlash -- The Final Struggle -- Troubled Decade. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: On Politics Alan Ryan, 2012 Looks at the history of politics from Hobbes to the twenty-first century. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: The Power of Memory in Democratic Politics Philip J. Brendese, 2014 Offers an examination of ancient, modern, and contemporary political theories and practices in order to develop a more expansive way of conceptualizing memory, how political power influences the presence of the past, and memory'songoing impact on democratic horizons. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: The Party and the People Bruce J. Dickson, 2021-05-25 How the Chinese Communist Party maintains its power by both repressing and responding to its people Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained unrivaled control over the country, persisting even in the face of economic calamity, widespread social upheaval, and violence against its own people. Yet the party does not sustain dominance through repressive tactics alone—it pairs this with surprising responsiveness to the public. The Party and the People explores how this paradox has helped the CCP endure for decades, and how this balance has shifted increasingly toward repression under the rule of President Xi Jinping. Delving into the tenuous binary of repression and responsivity, Bruce Dickson illuminates numerous questions surrounding the CCP’s rule: How does it choose leaders and create policies? When does it allow protests? Will China become democratic? Dickson shows that the party’s dual approach lies at the core of its practices—repression when dealing with existential, political threats or challenges to its authority, and responsiveness when confronting localized economic or social unrest. The state answers favorably to the demands of protesters on certain issues, such as local environmental hazards and healthcare, but deals harshly with others, such as protests in Tibet, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong. With the CCP’s greater reliance on suppression since Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012, Dickson considers the ways that this tipping of the scales will influence China’s future. Bringing together a vast body of sources, The Party and the People sheds new light on how the relationship between the Chinese state and its citizens shapes governance. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Political Philosophy and Time John G. Gunnell, 1968 This important study—wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and illuminating—deals broadly with the subject stated in its title: the nature of political vision and its relationship to ideas of time and historical existence. Its central focus is on Plato and the origins of political philosophy as a category of thought, especially as developed later Dialogues. But the earlier chapters—a significant proportion of the book—are devoted to the mythic pattern of cosmological interpretation, the prophetic tradition of Hebrew culture, and Greek ideas of the pre-philosophical era—considered not as stages in the genesis of Platonism but as alternatives to, or contrasts with, the views of human order and historical existence there formulated. The concluding pages review the subsequent Western tradition of political philosophy, from Aristotle to Heidegger, stressing the continual interplay between ideas of time and political order, and pointing the way, however indirectly, to a fresh approach. No brief outline of this book can do justice to Mr. Gunnell's breadth of scholarship, his rich detail, his acute and stimulating perceptions, comments, and analyses. Writing in a style at once magisterial, precisely worded, and frequently eloquent in its balance and flow, he not so much argues a thesis as presents an invitation to think in terms of that thesis, in a work that combines such diverse disciplines as philosophy, classical studies, religion, and political science into a broad synthesis based on an original and fruitful theory of symbolic forms. His study will be of major interest to scholars in those fields, and to all who think deeply of man's place in the universe and his relations to his fellow man.-Publisher. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Between Tradition and Revolution Manfred Riedel, 2011-03-03 The studies in this 1996 volume relate Hegel's mature views on ethics and politics to the classical tradition of Western political thought. Applying superb scholarship and his knowledge of earlier thinkers to the Philosophy of Right, Manfred Tiedel reveals connections which clarify Hegel's understanding of his relationship with his predecessors. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: The Democratic Soul Wilson Carey McWilliams, 2011-06-30 Collected works by the acclaimed political scientist, showcasing his thoughts on education, religion, literature, as well as twentieth-century figures. In 1973, Wilson Carey McWilliams (1933–2005) published The Idea of Fraternity in America, a groundbreaking book that argued for an alternative to America’s dominant philosophy of liberalism. This alternative tradition emphasized that community and fraternal bonds were as vital to the process of maintaining political liberty as was individual liberty. McWilliams expanded on this idea throughout his prolific career as a teacher, writer, and activist, promoting a unique definition of American democracy. In The Democratic Soul: A Wilson Carey McWilliams Reader, editors Patrick J. Deneen and Susan J. McWilliams, daughter of the famed intellectual, have assembled key essays, articles, reviews, and lectures that trace McWilliams’s evolution as a scholar and explain his often controversial views on education, religion, and literature. The book also showcases his thoughts and opinions on prominent twentieth-century figures such as George Orwell and Leo Strauss. The first comprehensive volume of Wilson Carey McWilliams’ collected writings, The Democratic Soul will be welcomed by scholars of political science and American political thought as a long-overdue contribution to the field. “Wilson Carey McWilliams was a seer, a small d-democrat, an artist who valued eloquent prose, and one of his era’s shrewdest students of American politics. May this collection of some of his very best work introduce him to a new generation eager for a vision that is at once progressive, communitarian and deeply grounded in the realities of American history. McWiliams brought not only deep knowledge to his work, but also wisdom, compassion and a stubborn prophet’s sense of what is right, what is just, and what is good.” —E.J. Dionne, author of Why Americans Hate Politics “A treasury of thoughts and arguments from articles of the late Carey McWilliams. All are still timely, still relevant to American politics today. Political philosophy as he practiced it never goes out of style. How his keen eye and sturdy wisdom are missed!” —Harvey Mansfield, professor of Government, Harvard University “In addition to his work on the Founding, McWilliams was committed to writing and teaching about contemporary politics. No one was better at presenting to students the entirety of American political thought, as a single phenomenon linking past and present, a long story with a known beginning but an unknown end. These qualities come through very clearly in this collection of his essays.” —Dennis Hale, professor of political science, Boston College |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Justice is Steady Work Michael Walzer, Astrid von Busekist, 2020-09-25 Michael Walzer is one of the pre-eminent political theorists in the world today and also a prominent public intellectual. His conception of social justice and his work on just and unjust wars have been hugely influential in political theory and, at the same time, he has taken a public stand on many of the great issues of our time, from the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War to 9/11, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraq War. He stands out among political theorists and philosophers by virtue of his attention to historical reality and his sensitivity to social and political context. Convinced that philosophical debate is only useful if it is rooted in the concrete practices and morality of societies, he develops a form of social critique that is opposed to a disembodied philosophy which does not respond to concerns of ordinary people. For Walzer, it is useless to try to write a theory of justice: the challenge is to think through issues of justice in relation to the particular contexts in which people live out their lives. The core strength of his work is his practical instinct: if individuals are contextualized, critique must be too. This book takes the form of an extended conversation between Walzer and Astrid von Busekist, ranging from Walzer’s biography and political activism to his work on war, justice and Judaism. Weaving together his theoretical work and his political activism, it provides an outstanding introduction to the life and work of one of the most influential political theorists of our time. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: The Athenian Revolution Josiah Ober, 2020-09-01 Where did democracy come from, and what was its original form and meaning? Here Josiah Ober shows that this power of the people crystallized in a revolutionary uprising by the ordinary citizens of Athens in 508-507 B.C. He then examines the consequences of the development of direct democracy for upper-and lower-class citizens, for dissident Athenian intellectuals, and for those who were denied citizenship under the new regime (women, slaves, resident foreigners), as well as for the general development of Greek history. When the citizens suddenly took power into their own hands, they changed the cultural and social landscape of Greece, thereby helping to inaugurate the Classical Era. Democracy led to fundamental adjustments in the basic structures of Athenian society, altered the forms and direction of political thinking, and sparked a series of dramatic reorientations in international relations. It quickly made Athens into the most powerful Greek city-state, but it also fatally undermined the traditional Greek rules of warfare. It stimulated the development of the Western tradition of political theorizing and encouraged a new conception of justice that has striking parallels to contemporary theories of rights. But Athenians never embraced the notions of inherency and inalienability that have placed the concept of rights at the center of modern political thought. Thus the play of power that constituted life in democratic Athens is revealed as at once strangely familiar and desperately foreign, and the values sustaining the Athenian political community as simultaneously admirable and terrifying. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Politics and Vision Sheldon Sanford Wolin, 2004 This is a significantly expanded edition of one of the greatest works of modern political theory. Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. This new edition retains intact the original ten chapters about political thinkers from Plato to Mill, and adds seven chapters about theorists from Marx and Nietzsche to Rawls and the postmodernists. The new chapters, which show how thinkers have grappled with the immense possibilities and dangers of modern power, are themselves a major theoretical statement. They culminate in Wolin's remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form, 'inverted totalitarianism, 'in which economic rather than political power is dangerously dominant. In this new edition, the book that helped to define political theory in the late twentieth century should energize, enlighten, and provoke generations of scholars to come. Wolin originally wrote Politics and Vision to challenge the. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Marx's Inferno William Clare Roberts, 2016-12-20 Marx’s Inferno reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx’s Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, William Roberts argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers’ movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, Roberts shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante’s Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers’ emancipation to the secret depths of the modern “social Hell.” In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism. Combining research on Marx’s interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, Roberts traces the continuities linking Marx’s theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. He immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. Roberts rescues those debates from the past, and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today’s world. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Nietzsche's Machiavellian Politics D. Dombowsky, 2004-02-27 In this exciting new study, Don Dombowsky proposes that the foundation of Nietzsche's political thought is the aristocratic liberal critique of democratic society. But he claims that Nietzsche radicalizes this critique through a Machiavellian conversion, based on a reading of The Prince , adapting Machiavellian virtù (the shaping capacity of the legislator), and immoralism (the techniques applied in political rule), and that, consequently, Nietzsche is better understood in relation to the political ideology of the neo-Machiavellian elite theorists of his own generation. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Saving Persuasion Bryan Garsten, 2009-03-31 In today's increasingly polarized political landscape it seems that fewer and fewer citizens hold out hope of persuading one another. Even among those who have not given up on persuasion, few will admit to practicing the art of persuasion known as rhetoric. To describe political speech as rhetoric today is to accuse it of being superficial or manipulative. In Saving Persuasion, Bryan Garsten uncovers the early modern origins of this suspicious attitude toward rhetoric and seeks to loosen its grip on contemporary political theory. Revealing how deeply concerns about rhetorical speech shaped both ancient and modern political thought, he argues that the artful practice of persuasion ought to be viewed as a crucial part of democratic politics. He provocatively suggests that the aspects of rhetoric that seem most dangerous--the appeals to emotion, religious values, and the concrete commitments and identities of particular communities--are also those which can draw out citizens' capacity for good judgment. Against theorists who advocate a rationalized ideal of deliberation aimed at consensus, Garsten argues that a controversial politics of partiality and passion can produce a more engaged and more deliberative kind of democratic discourse. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Redeeming The Prince Maurizio Viroli, 2015-08-25 A fresh introduction to—and bold new interpretation of—Machiavelli's Prince In Redeeming The Prince, one of the world's leading Machiavelli scholars puts forth a startling new interpretation of arguably the most influential but widely misunderstood book in the Western political tradition. Overturning popular misconceptions and challenging scholarly consensus, Maurizio Viroli also provides a fresh introduction to the work. Seen from this original perspective, five centuries after its composition, The Prince offers new insights into the nature and possibilities of political liberation. Rather than a bible of unscrupulous politics, The Prince, Viroli argues, is actually about political redemption—a book motivated by Machiavelli's patriotic desire to see a new founding for Italy. Written in the form of an oration, following the rules of classical rhetoric, the book condenses its main message in the final section, Exhortation to liberate Italy from the Barbarians. There Machiavelli creates the myth of a redeemer, an ideal ruler who ushers in an era of peace, freedom, and unity. Contrary to scholars who maintain that the exhortation was added later, Viroli proves that Machiavelli composed it along with the rest of the text, completing the whole by December 1513 or early 1514. Only if we read The Prince as a theory of political redemption, Viroli contends, can we at last understand, and properly evaluate, the book's most controversial pages on political morality, as well as put to rest the cliché of Machiavelli as a Machiavellian. Bold, clear, and provocative, Redeeming The Prince should permanently change how Machiavelli and his masterpiece are understood. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Political Dissent in Democratic Athens Josiah Ober, 2001-12-02 Since it was no longer self-evident that better men meant better government, critics of democracy sought new arguments to explain the relationship among politics, ethics, and morality. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning Chris Hedges, 2014-04-08 General George S. Patton famously said, Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so! Though Patton was a notoriously single-minded general, it is nonetheless a sad fact that war gives meaning to many lives, a fact with which we have become familiar now that America is once again engaged in a military conflict. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us purpose, resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. Chris Hedges of The New York Times has seen war up close -- in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central America -- and he has been troubled by what he has seen: friends, enemies, colleagues, and strangers intoxicated and even addicted to war's heady brew. In War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, he tackles the ugly truths about humanity's love affair with war, offering a sophisticated, nuanced, intelligent meditation on the subject that is also gritty, powerful, and unforgettable. |
| sheldon wolin politics and vision: Heart Of Matter Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1980-07-23 The final volume of Teilhard's collected essays, containing two texts of key importance published for the first time: The Heart of Matter and The Christic. Foreword by N. M. Wildiers; Index. Translated by René Hague. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book |
Young Sheldon - Wikipedia
Young Sheldon is an American sitcom television series created by Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro which aired on CBS from September 25, 2017, to May 16, 2024.
Young Sheldon (TV Series 2017–2024) - IMDb
Young Sheldon: Created by Chuck Lorre, Steven Molaro. With Iain Armitage, Zoe Perry, Lance Barber, Montana Jordan. Meet a child genius named Sheldon Cooper (already seen as an …
Sheldon Cooper | The Big Bang Theory Wiki | Fandom
Sheldon Lee [1] Cooper, [2] B.Sc., M.Sc., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., [3] is a Caltech theoretical physicist. Next to his best friend Leonard Hofstadter, he's the main protagonist of The Big Bang Theory …
Watch Young Sheldon - Netflix
Brilliant yet awkward 9-year-old Sheldon Cooper lands in high school where his smarts leave everyone stumped in this "The Big Bang Theory" spinoff. Watch trailers & learn more.
Sheldon Cooper - The Big Bang Theory
Dr. Sheldon Cooper BS, MS, MA, PhD, and ScD is a theoretical physicist at Caltech who is married to neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler, with whom he now lives in Apartment 4B after …
'Young Sheldon' Series Finale: How It Ended After 7 Seasons
May 17, 2024 · After seven seasons with the Cooper family, Young Sheldon finally came to an end on May 16 with a series finale that was the perfect send-off to a cast of characters …
Sheldon Cooper - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sheldon Lee Cooper Ph.d, Sc.d is a fictional character in the American television sitcom The Big Bang Theory, played by Jim Parsons, and the Young Sheldon series, played by Iain Armitage. …
Watch Young Sheldon Streaming Online | Hulu
For 10 years on "The Big Bang Theory," audiences have come to know the iconic, eccentric and extraordinary Sheldon Cooper. This single-camera, half-hour comedy gives us the chance to …
Sheldon Cooper - Wikipedia
Sheldon Lee Cooper, [4] [5] B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., [6] is a fictional character and one of the protagonists in the 2007–2019 CBS television series The Big Bang Theory and its …
'Young Sheldon' Season 7: Premiere date, time, where to watch …
Feb 14, 2024 · The final season of "Young Sheldon" is set to premiere on CBS. The popular spin-off of smash hit sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" centers on a younger version of Jim Parsons' …
Young Sheldon - Wikipedia
Young Sheldon is an American sitcom television series created by Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro which aired on CBS from September 25, 2017, to May 16, 2024.
Young Sheldon (TV Series 2017–2024) - IMDb
Young Sheldon: Created by Chuck Lorre, Steven Molaro. With Iain Armitage, Zoe Perry, Lance Barber, Montana Jordan. Meet a child genius named Sheldon Cooper (already seen as an adult in …
Sheldon Cooper | The Big Bang Theory Wiki | Fandom
Sheldon Lee [1] Cooper, [2] B.Sc., M.Sc., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., [3] is a Caltech theoretical physicist. Next to his best friend Leonard Hofstadter, he's the main protagonist of The Big Bang Theory and …
Watch Young Sheldon - Netflix
Brilliant yet awkward 9-year-old Sheldon Cooper lands in high school where his smarts leave everyone stumped in this "The Big Bang Theory" spinoff. Watch trailers & learn more.
Sheldon Cooper - The Big Bang Theory
Dr. Sheldon Cooper BS, MS, MA, PhD, and ScD is a theoretical physicist at Caltech who is married to neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler, with whom he now lives in Apartment 4B after years of …
'Young Sheldon' Series Finale: How It Ended After 7 Seasons
May 17, 2024 · After seven seasons with the Cooper family, Young Sheldon finally came to an end on May 16 with a series finale that was the perfect send-off to a cast of characters audiences …
Sheldon Cooper - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sheldon Lee Cooper Ph.d, Sc.d is a fictional character in the American television sitcom The Big Bang Theory, played by Jim Parsons, and the Young Sheldon series, played by Iain Armitage. …
Watch Young Sheldon Streaming Online | Hulu
For 10 years on "The Big Bang Theory," audiences have come to know the iconic, eccentric and extraordinary Sheldon Cooper. This single-camera, half-hour comedy gives us the chance to …
Sheldon Cooper - Wikipedia
Sheldon Lee Cooper, [4] [5] B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., [6] is a fictional character and one of the protagonists in the 2007–2019 CBS television series The Big Bang Theory and its 2017–2024 …
'Young Sheldon' Season 7: Premiere date, time, where to watch …
Feb 14, 2024 · The final season of "Young Sheldon" is set to premiere on CBS. The popular spin-off of smash hit sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" centers on a younger version of Jim Parsons' …
