The History of Political Thought: A Very Short Introduction

by Richard Whatmore

Overview

Thinking about politics has tended to be historical in nature because of the comparisons and contrasts that can be drawn between past and present. Different periods in politics have used the past differently. At times political thought can be said to have been drawn directly from the study of history; at others, perhaps including our own time, the relationship is more indirect.

This Very Short Introduction explores the core concerns and questions in the field of the history of political thought. Richard Whatmore considers the history of political thought as a branch of political philosophy/political science, and examines the approaches of core theorists such as Reinhart Koselleck, Strauss, Michel Foucault, and the so-called Cambridge School of Quentin Skinner and John Pocock. Assessing the current relationship between political history, theory and action, Whatmore concludes with an analysis of its relevance for current politics.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198853725
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2022
Series:	Very Short Introductions
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	522,804
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 4.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Richard Whatmore, Professor of Modern History and Co-Director of the Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews

Richard Whatmore is a Professor of Modern History and Co-Director of the Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Republicanism and the French Revolution (OUP, 2000); Against War and Empire (Yale, 2012); What is Intellectual History? (Polity, 2015); and Terrorists, Anarchists and Republicans (Princeton, 2019).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements xix

List of illustrations xxi

1 History and politics 1

2 Definitions and justifications 9

3 The history of political thought and Marxism 31

4 Political philosophers and the history of political thought 51

5 The 'Cambridge School' 67

6 Koselleck and conceptual history 84

7 Michel Foucault and governmentality 94

8 Globality, morality, and the future 107

References 123

Further reading 125

Index 129