Customer Reviews

The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700

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A series of essays on the major thinkers and their periods, this book, and really all the Cambridge polisci history volumes, is an excellent survey of this fundamentally important period in the development of theories of the state, which is still a vitally important issue for our world today, whether you think about the rise of stateless terrorism, economic imperialism, development issues, the rise of continental blocs a la NAFTA or the EU, law and jurisprudence, etc etc etc.

This book is NOT a generalist survey, it assumes that you have some knowledge of the period and the thinkers. But if you do, and you would like to understand the subject without having to take 5 years of your life to pursue a PhD in the area, this book is one that you must have. Excellent bibliography herein also. If you are interested in Bodin, Machiavelli, Hobbes, etc, then you must read this book. Or maybe you would do better with the exterior discipline of Cal's PhD in polisci. But if you might be an autodidact, then you can buy this book and read it for fun and edification without having to commit yourself to a phd program. In other words, you can keep your day job. If thats not utilitarian, then I'm bentham's uncle sally.