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Sovereignty: God, State, and Self
Overview
In this seminal work in the fields of political history and political theory, Jean Bethke Elshtain shows how the powerful notion of sovereigntycomplete independence and self-governmenthas irrevocably sculpted contemporary notions of God, state and self. Elshtain examines the conceptual underpinnings of sovereignty, considering the early modern ideas of God that formed the basis for the modern paradigm of the sovereign state, and making the unprecedented claim that political theories of state sovereignty fuel contemporary understandings of sovereignty of the selfarguing, in other words, that when we understand why we have the politics we have, we will understand what makes humans themselves tick. The implications of Elshtain's monumental thesis go as far as to suggest that self-sovereignty, which understands the self to be an independent, self-sufficient entity, undermines the bedrock on which human communities are fundamentally sustained. In thoughtful, provocative prose, Elshtain explores the connections between our political and ethical convictions, changing forever the way we understand the notion of sovereignty.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780465037599 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Basic Books |
| Publication date: | 09/20/2005 |
| Series: | Gifford Lectures |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d) |
| Age Range: | 13 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at The University of Chicago. She is the author of over four hundred essays in scholarly journals and journals of civic opinion, and some one hundred and seventy five book reviews, and was a contributing editor at The New Republic. Among her books are Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (Basic, 2001), Just War Against Terror (Basic, 2003) and Democracy on Trial (Basic, 1995). She lives in Nashville, Tennessee and Chicago, Illinois.
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Sovereign God: From Logos to Will 1
Sovereign God: Bound or Unbound 29
Will, Power, and Earthly Dominion 57
The Sovereign State Unchained 77
The Binding and Loosing of Sovereign States 91
Binding, Loosing, and Revolution 119
Unbinding Revolution, Binding Constitution 137
The Creation of the Sovereign Self 159
Self-Sovereignty: Moralism, Nihilism, and Existential Isolation 181
The Sovereign Self: Dreams of Radical Transcendence 203
The Less-Than-Sovereign Self and the Human Future 227
Afterword 247
Acknowledgments 249
Notes 251
Index 321







