Power: A Radical View

by Steven Lukes

Overview

The second edition of this seminal work includes the original text, first published in 1974, alongside two major new chapters. Power: A Radical View assesses the main debates about how to conceptualize and study power, including the influential contributions of Michel Foucault. Power Revisited reconsiders Steven Lukes' own views in light of these debates and of criticisms of his original argument.

With a new introduction and bibliographical essay, this book has consolidated its reputation as a classic work and a major reference point within Social and Political Theory. It can be used on modules across the Social and Political Sciences dealing with the concept of power and its manifestation in the world. It is also essential reading for all undergraduate and postgraduates interested in the history of Social and Political Thought.

New to this Edition:
- An additional introduction explaining the context of the first edition of Power: A Radical View
- Two new chapters defending Lukes' original argument and assessing the main debates about power since
- A detailed guide to further reading on essential concepts and key thinkers

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350314320
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	03/16/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	460 KB

About the Author

STEVEN LUKES is Professor of Sociology at New York University, USA. He has previously held professorships at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, the University of Siena, Italy, the European University Institute, Italy, and Balliol College, Oxford, UK. His many published works include Moral Conflict and Politics, Marxism and Morality, Essays in Social Theory, Individualism, and Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Power: A Radical View
Power Revisited
Power, Freedom and Reason
Guide to Further Reading
Bibliography
Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Steven Lukes’s analysis on power is a modern classic that has shaped nearly fifty years of literature on the topic. With characteristic clarity and insight, this expanded and revised edition engages with neorepublican debates of freedom as non-domination to illustrate the relevance of Lukes’s three-dimensional conception for some of our most urgent philosophical and political questions. – Lea Ypi, London School of Economics, UK

This famous breakthrough to understanding persuasively displays the protean character of power. With the original chapters joined by one on domination and a second that deepens its three-dimensional orientation, this fundamental and influential book has become ever more compelling. – Ira Katznelson, Columbia University, US

In this age of conspiracy mongering, the new edition of Steven Lukes's Power is doubly welcome. It gives us a brilliantly tough-minded and realistic account of how power operates both when it is visible and when it isn't. – Professor Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, US

When first published, Steven Lukes’s classic “radical view” of power set the stage for any further critical debate about that concept. But now, with another expanded edition, we learn a new meaning of “radical”: rethinking one’s own theory from the ground up, in a truly dialogical way. Could a masterpiece ever be perfected? Yes, it can. – Professor Rainer Forst, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Editorial Reviews

"Three decades after the publication of his classic essay on power, Lukes has pulled off one of the rarest feats in social science. He has written a new and better edition of a classic. He does this by drawing from a major critical movement he had neglected (feminism), addressing the most influential alternative new explanations of power (Foucault and James Scott), and most importantly, incorporating recent seminal arguments (especially Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum)." - Alfred Stepan, Wallace Sayre Professor of Government, Columbia University

"Thirty years ago, Steven Lukes stirred up an intellectual firestorm with his radical analysis of power. Now he is doing it again. Thank heaven!" - Professor Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University

"Like the first edition, which it includes, this is a truly superb volume. It will, in thirty years' time, remain a - possibly the - classic treatment of power in the English language." -- Professor Colin Hay, University of Birmingham

"This wonderful extended version - effectively a new book - deepens and refines the conceptual, empirical and moral attributes of Power. No one concerned with politics can afford to miss this masterful clarification of power as capacity." -- Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University

From the Publisher