ABSTRACT

Fifty Major Political Thinkers introduces the lives and ideas of some of the most influential figures in Western political thought, from ancient Greece to the present day. The entries provide a fascinating introduction to the major figures and schools of thought that have shaped contemporary politics, including:

  • Aristotle
  • Simone de Beauvoir
  • Michel Foucault
  • Mohandas Gandhi
  • Jurgen Habermas
  • Machiavelli
  • Karl Marx
  • Thomas Paine
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Mary Wollstonecraft.

Fully cross-referenced and including a glossary of theoretical terms, this wide-ranging and accessible book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the evolution and history of contemporary political thought.

chapter |8 pages

Plato (427–347 BCE)

chapter |8 pages

Aristotle (384–322 BCE)

chapter |4 pages

Cicero (106–43 BCE)

chapter |7 pages

John Locke (1632–1704)

chapter |4 pages

Montesquieu (1689–1755)

chapter |5 pages

David Hume (1711–76)

chapter |4 pages

Edmund Burke (1729–97)

chapter |3 pages

Tom Paine (1737–1809)

chapter |7 pages

G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831)

chapter |9 pages

Karl Marx (1818–83)

chapter |3 pages

T.H. Green (1836–82)

chapter |6 pages

Max Weber (1864–1920)

chapter |4 pages

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985)

chapter |3 pages

Hannah Arendt (1906–75)

chapter |6 pages

Frantz Fanon (1925–61)

chapter |4 pages

John Rawls (1921–2002)

chapter |6 pages

Jürgen Habermas (1929–)