Sovereignty: God, State, and Self

by Jean Bethke Elshtain

Overview

Throughout the history of human intellectual endeavor, sovereignty has cut across the diverse realms of theology, political thought, and psychology. From earliest Christian worship to the revolutionary ideas of Thomas Jefferson and Karl Marx, the debates about sovereignty — complete independence and self-government — have dominated our history.

In this seminal work of political history and political theory, leading scholar and public intellectual Jean Bethke Elshtain examines the origins and meanings of &"sovereignty"; as it relates to all the ways we attempt to explain our world: God, state, and self. Examining the early modern ideas of God which formed the basis for the modern sovereign state, Elshtain carries her research from theology and philosophy into psychology, showing that political theories of state sovereignty fuel contemporary understandings of sovereignty of the self. As the basis of sovereign power shifts from God, to the state, to the self, Elshtain uncovers startling realities often hidden from view. Her thesis consists in nothing less than a thorough-going rethinking of our intellectual history through its keystone concept.

The culmination of over thirty years of critically applauded work in feminism, international relations, political thought, and religion, Sovereignty opens new ground for our understanding of our own culture, its past, present, and future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465028566
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	04/03/2012
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at The University of Chicago. She is the author of over four hundred essays in scholarly journals and journals of civic opinion, and some one hundred and seventy five book reviews, and was a contributing editor at the New Republic.

Among her books are Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (Basic, 2001), Just War Against Terror (Basic, 2003) and Democracy on Trial (Basic, 1995). She lives in Nashville, Tennessee and Chicago, Illinois.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Chapter 1 Sovereign God: From Logos to Will 1

Chapter 2 Sovereign God: Bound or Unbound 29

Chapter 3 Will, Power, and Earthly Dominion 57

Chapter 4 The Sovereign State Unchained 77

Chapter 5 The Binding and Loosing of Sovereign States 91

Chapter 6 Binding, Loosing, and Revolution 119

Chapter 7 Unbinding Revolution, Binding Constitution 137

Chapter 8 The Creation of the Sovereign Self 159

Chapter 9 Self-Sovereignty: Moralism, Nihilism, and Existential Isolation 181

Chapter 10 The Sovereign Self: Dreams of Radical Transcendence 203

Chapter 11 The Less-Than-Sovereign Self and the Human Future 227

Afterword 247

Acknowledgments 249

Notes 251

Index 321

Editorial Reviews

Elshtain (social & political ethics, Univ. of Chicago; Just War Against Terror) deals here with the origins and development of our current concept of political and personal sovereignty, tracing its history from Augustine to Nietzsche and noting the move toward absolute autonomy of the state and the individual. According to Elshtain, even individual sovereignty becomes tyranny without relationships and community. We are created to love and that puts a limit on our sovereignty, she writes; "if we refuse to observe a limit, we are destroyers." Elshtain reexamines the relevant writings of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and many others in light of her philosophical analysis. She also applies her insight to postmodernism, radical feminism, and other modern movements, showing in her approach a deep knowledge of her subject matter. An excellent scholarly, philosophical analysis of a difficult concept that Elshtain makes surprisingly accessible to readers outside her field; recommended primarily for academic and large public libraries.
—C. Robert Nixon

Library Journal