Customer Reviews

Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm no genius. A pedant, perhaps, and an arrogant jerk, but not a guy with the kind of education it seems other reviewers have. I can't tell you who Locke's friends were or what his political connections were, either. I have some vague notion that Locke's and Mill's ideas influenced the philisophical basis of the American founding documents, but I'm just a soldier who sometimes likes to bite off more than he can chew--I wan't to know the stuff them smart people do, and don't see any reason I shouldn't!

So if you're like me, let me encourage you to get this book. Your friends will almost certainly call you a nerd (after all, who reads 17th century political philosophy for FUN?), and it'll take a few pages to cut your teeth on the language, but after you get going, this book is a breeze. I can't tell you the philisophical doctrines nor their framework in several distinct points, but I can tell you this: the language, to one of average education, was a little hard to wrap my brain around, but what worked for me was just to set a pace and trudge through it without getting hung up on the one sentence that twisted my mind into a pretzel. After a few pages (maybe 10 or 15) I found that my brain was correcting for the nature of the wording, and for the rest of the book, I swear, I understood what was going on through the second treatise and the Letter, too.

After I got going, I was all highlighters and folded corners, but it had too many profound and simple statements to save them all in my head. If you're even vaguely political, this book will make points as absolutely applicable to today's world politics as it did to those of the bygone time. It applies from everything from the crazy long haired hippie communist democrats to the crazy power-mad Neocons, but it'll make you wish with all your heart that both ruling parties of American Government would give it a quick read over the recess.

Anyhow, I rate this work as 4 stars out of 5. Mostly that's because I have absolutely nothing to compare it against, and am therefore hesitant to give it 5 stars, because it's the first political philosophy I've ever read. But dammit, it seems like a pretty good one to me. Just don't let it scare you off, you don't need to be a genious to understand this. Let's even the playing field between us regular people and the academic jerks (love you guys, really, just making a point) that like to write reviews even Locke wouldn't understand :) This stuff is great, and it's great for even those who, like me, are only moderately intelligent readers.

This copy of "Two Treatises of Government & A Letter Concerning Toleration" is NOT and I repeat NOT the actual "Two Treatises," but is only the Second Treatise - those looking for both treatises - as the title suggests - will be disappointed. In short, HALF the book is missing.

This is a great book for teaching U.S. History classes, using it as a reference for teaching, or just for reading.

Locke is required reading for anyone who wants to learn about political thought during the revolutionary period.

Well worth the read and purchase.