The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics [Paperback]

John Dunn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0465017487 | ISBN-13: 978-0465017485 | Publication Date: August 21, 2001

John Dunn is the founding father of the Cambridge school, which introduced an approach to political theory that emphasizes the importance of historical context in the formation and interpretation of arguments and ideas. The Cunning of Unreason makes a powerful case for the application of the Cambridge school approach to the current political climate. Emphasizing the tempering influence of actual social and political circumstances, as well as the enduring relevance of great political thinkers from Aristotle to Marx, Dunn addresses contemporary debates about democracy, corruption, globalization, and the recent trend toward conservatism.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The promises of the modern democratic republic far exceed its performance, concludes political theorist Dunn in this very abstract discussion of fundamental political questions. Beginning with the basicsAwhat is politics and why does it occur?Ahe outlines the major answers suggested by philosophers, then launches theoretical examinations of the state, political knowledge and the making of political judgments. The limitations of human beingsAespecially limits to knowledge and rationalityAare recognized throughout and become most prominent when Dunn considers post-1979 British politics. When the contemporary democratic republic is "directly encountered," he states, "it is quite obviously (and, in all probability, irreversibly) corrupt and feckless." Yet he does not champion an alternative, for the sometimes disappointing performance of modern states must be cast in the context of the overwhelmingly difficult agenda they face. Politics is "the balance of conflict and cooperation," and there is usually a surplus of conflict; this makes politics "a site of danger," the experience of which is likely to be "irritating" and "all but invariably disappointing." But Dunn argues that we owe these states our loyalty because they have, at least to this point, worked to our advantage. After traversing considerable and difficult intellectual terrain to reach this tepid, almost clich?d conclusion, the reader may very well be disappointed with Dunn's book as well as with politics. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

John Dunn is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Cambridge.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (August 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465017487
• ISBN-13: 978-0465017485
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,773,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for the Uninitiated, October 31, 2000

By 

Panopticonman "panopticonman" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics (Hardcover)

Dunn is a Political Theorist at Cambridge who makes good in this book on the Theorist part of his academic title. Informing us at the outset that he's writing a book for the general reader about how to think about politics, his prose style (which employs parentheses to a fault) nearly defeats both him and us. Oracular, dense, he is prone to starting paragraphs that state there are such things as "three factors one must explore when thinking of government as coercive structure based on the provision of security for it's citizens." He writes sentences so long and so carefully balanced in tone that you forget what he's talking about before you get to the end of the sentence. Not really for the general reader in other words.

And yet...once he gets away from discussing great political thinkers from the past (and how to think about what they thought, and how to decide what makes them applicable) and gets down to describing a case study -- how Margaret Thatcher got into power and stayed in power -- he's quite readable.

Here's a passage about Thatcher that shows both Mr. Dunn for good and ill:

"In the case of the global neo-liberal agenda of the 80s and 90s (of which Reagan and Thatcher were prominent and consequential exponents), its public impact across large areas of the world, from some of the richest states to some of the poorest, depended both upon ideological impetus and upon drastic shifts in the international context in which the national economies operated.

"There were close and obtrusive links between these two factors throughout, since the agencies of international economic coordination were often potent vectors of the the conceptions of sound policy, and the ways in which they operated, and the institutional changes which they brought about, themselves brusquely altered the incentives faced by governments and economic actors across the world.

"Thge ideas themselves were in no important way novel(though their expression was naturally more up to the minute). What had always been less than engaging about them, and what had long proved ineffectual, remained just as engaging, and very often every bit as ineffectual. But ideological infection and institutional change, both carefully planned and essentially inadvertent, reinforced each other massively. What was evidently going on was a single interconnected process, a vast tipping in the balance of advantage between one set of ways of organizing production, distribution and exchange, subordinated, at least in intention to the pursuit of social welfare through public policy, and another set of ways of organizing production, distribution and exhange which had far weaker connections with the goal of pursuing social welfare, more especially through public policy." pg. 173-4

Not for the general reader, but nevertheless one appreciates his wide knowledge, flashes of insight and wit.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, October 30, 2011

By 

Dag Vaula "jack of no trades" (Kalandseidet, Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics (Paperback)

A title like "The Cunning of Unreason" promises much. This book does not fulfill that promise. Take my advice: Read the conclusion first, then the first few pages, then consider whether the effort of deciphering the author's overblown prose in order to reach such an conclusion is worth while.