The Routledge Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Political Thinkers

by Robert Benewick (Editor), Philip Green (Editor)

Overview

This edition has been revised and extended to include eleven new entries on Berlin, Chomsky, Derrida, Rorty and many others. Key features of this unique guide include:
* 170 entries from 96 contributors, many of whom are leading authorities in their field
* alphabetically arranged entries which include brief biographies, outlines of major ideas and suggestions for further reading
* coverage of Western and Third World political theorists as well as those who have influenced new movements based on the issues of ethnicity, gender and ecology
* a thematically organised index

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134864676
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/11/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	579 KB

About the Author

Robert Benewick is Reader in Politics at the University of Sussex. Philip Green is Sophia Smith Professor of Government at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Introduction, List of contributors, Twentieth-Century Political Thinkers, Index

Editorial Reviews

With this book, Benewick and Green enter the crowded fray of dictionaries of political biography. This year's "Oxford Companion to Politics of the World" [RBB My 1 93] includes entries on 100 political thinkers. Also recent are "Chambers Dictionary of Political Biography" (1991), "Great Political Thinkers" (Oxford, 1992), and "The Economist Dictionary of Political Biography" (1991) What is unique about "Routledge"? The editors state that it is the only current dictionary of political biography that covers the Third World as well as the West, and that covers the "new movements based on ethnicity, gender and ecological concerns." Indeed, Third World theorists such as Frantz Fanon and Paulo Freire are included along with feminist thinkers and theorists on race. The editors identify three types of political thinkers: those that largely (1) do, (2) think, or (3) write. Some "doers," such as Ataturk, Castro, and the Ayatollah Khomeini are treated, but the majority of the 159 entries are for political theorists The book is partially successful. Its breadth is wonderful. The subjects range from Hannah Arendt to Simone de Beauvoir and from Booker T. Washington to Sigmund Freud. Missing are Oswald Spengler and Noam Chomsky. Entries range from a short sentence for American Marxist Paul Baran to more than three pages for Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich von Hayek. Entries often end with references to other entries in the book. Each concludes with a list of the subject's works and a list of other works about the subject. The lack of a subject index is a flaw. There is no way to find entries for socialists, Marxists, or libertarians, for example Many of the figures in "Routledge" are so well known that information about them can be found in many other sources. Those needing a brief readable summary of the thought of some contemporary theorists, such as feminist writer Catherine MacKinnon or libertarian thinker Robert Nozick, will find this book useful. For libraries on a tight budget, the "Oxford Companion to Politics of the World" is a better choice.

Zom Zoms

New edition of a dictionary of political thinkers from 1900 to the present. The entries are not limited to politicians, as evidenced by the inclusion of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Derrida, Rorty, and George Bernard Shaw. Each entry includes a brief biography, an outline of the individual's major ideas and texts, and a bibliography of their primary texts. There are 174 entries in all. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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