50 Politics Classics: Revised Edition

by Tom Butler-Bowdon

Overview

What if you didn't have to read the 50 most important books on Politics to know the most important ideas?

This is the thinking person's guide to the big political texts from across the centuries,
from the original pioneers to the contemporary. With insightful commentary for each of the 50 books,
key quotes and biographical information on the authors and a guide to further reading,
50 Politics Classics gives a unique overview of the political writings that shaped history and are still shaping minds today.

From Abraham Lincoln to Nelson Mandela,
and from Aristotle to George Orwell,
50 Politics Classics distils the essence of the books,
pamphlets,
and speeches of the major leaders and great thinkers that drive real-world change. Spanning 2,
500 years,
left and right,
thinkers and doers,
Tom Butler-Bowdon covers activists,
war strategists,
visionary leaders,
economists,
philosophers of freedom,
feminists,
conservatives and environmentalists,
right up to contemporary leaders and thought leaders such as Barack Obama,
Isobel Wilkerson and Michael Pillsbury.

Whether you consider yourself to be conservative,
liberal,
socialist,
or Marxist,
this book gives you greater understanding of the key ideas that matter in our politically charged times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399800983
Publisher:	Mobius
Publication date:	09/27/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	227,215
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Tom Butler-Bowdon is an expert on the "literature of possibility", covering self-help, motivation, spirituality, prosperity, psychology and philosophy. USA Today described him as "a true scholar of this type of literature". His first book, 50 Self-Help Classics, won the Benjamin Franklin Award and was a Foreword magazine Book of the Year.

The 50 Classics series has sold over 400,000 copies and has been published in 23 languages.

A graduate of the London School of Economics and the University of Sydney, he lives in Oxford, UK, and Australia.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 1

1 Lord Acton Essays on Freedom and Power (1948) 20

2 Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012) 26

3 Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971) 32

4 Graham T. Allison & Philip Zetikow Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971/1999) 36

5 Norman Angell The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage (1910) 42

6 Hannah Arendt The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) 48

7 Aristotle Politics (4th century BCE) 54

8 Frédéric Bastiat The Law (1850) 60

9 Isaiah Berlin Two Concepts of Liberty (1958) 66

10 Edward Bernays Propaganda (1928) 72

11 Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward All the President's Men (1974) 78

12 Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) 84

13 Rachel Carson Silent Spring (1962) 90

14 Winston Churchill The Gathering Storm (1948) 96

15 Carl von Clausewitz On War (1832) 104

16 Frantz Fanon The Wretched of the Earth (1961) 110

17 Francis Fukuyama The End of History and the Last Man (1992) 116

18 Mohandas K. Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927-29) 122

19 Emma Goldman Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) 126

20 Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, & James Madison The Federalist Papers (1788) 132

21 F.A. Hayek The Road to Serfdom (1944) 138

22 Thomas Hobbes leviathan, or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil (1651) 144

23 Samuel P. Huntington The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) 148

24 Paul Kennedy The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987) 156

25 Martin Luther King Jr. (edited by Clayborne Carson) The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1998) 162

26 Abraham Lincoln The Gettysburg Address (1863) 168

27 John Locke Two Treatises of Government (1689) 174

28 Niccolò Machiavelli Discourses on Livy (1531) 180

29 Nelson Mandela Long Walk to Freedom (1995) 186

30 Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto (1848) 192

31 Mencius The Mencius (3rd century BCE) 198

32 John Stuart Mill The Subjection of Women (1869) 202

33 Hans Morgenthau Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (1948) 208

34 Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) 214

35 Barack Obama A Promised Land (2020) 220

36 Mancur Olson The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (1982) 228

37 George Orwell Animal Farm (1945) 234

38 Thomas Paine Common Sense (1776) 240

39 Michael Pillsbury The Hundred-Year Marathon (2015) 246

40 Plato Crito (4th century BCE) 252

41 Karl Popper The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) 256

42 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Discourse on the Origins and Basis of Inequality Among Men (1755) 262

43 Upton Sinclair The Jungle (1906) 268

44 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-56 (1974) 274

45 Sun Yat-sen Three Principles of the People (1924) 280

46 Margaret Thatcher The Autobiography (2013) 286

47 Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience (1849) 294

48 Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America (1835) 300

49 Isabel Wilkerson Caste (2020) 306

50 Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) 314

50 More Politics Classics 320

Credits 328

Acknowledgments 331