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On Politics
This is a book about the answers that historians, philosophers, theologians, practising politicians and would-be revolutionaries have given to one question:how should human beings best govern themselves? That question raises innumerable others: can we manage our own affairs at all? Should we even try? Many people in the past have thought that only some individuals were either able or entitled to practise self-government: Greeks, but not Persians; men, but not women; the better-off minority, but not the poor majority. Others have thought that few of us have any desire to govern ourselves, and that government is inevitably a matter of a competent elite managing an acquiescent mass. Then, what ...
On Politics
Finally in a one-volume paperback edition, On Politics is one of the most ambitious and hugely readable histories of political philosophy in nearly a century. Praised widely upon hardcover publication, Alan Ryan’s “masterpiece” (David Ulin, Los Angeles Times) blends history and philosophy to examine three thousand years of political thought. Drawing on three decades of research, Ryan insightfully traces the origins of political philosophy from the ancient Greeks to the present and evokes the lives and minds of our greatest thinkers in a way that makes reading about them a “remarkable experience” (Jeremy Waldron, New York Review of Books). Whether writing about Plato or Augustine, Tocqueville or Jefferson, Ryan illuminates John Dewey’s dictum that the role of philosophy is less to see truth than to enhance life. With this “epic” (John Keane, Financial Times) tour de force, Ryan affirms his place as one of the most influential political philosophers of our time.
The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill
Mill is usually thought of as an eclectic and unsystematic writer, whose views on freedom contradict his views on moral right and wrong, whose views on causation contradict his views on syllogistic inference and so on. Alan Ryan, however, demonstrates that Mill both saw his views as part of a systematic defence of empiricist epistemology and utilitarian ethics, and was to a large extent successful in offering a coherent and connected defence of this system. Mill aimed to show that we could possess a knowledge of individual and social human nature equal to our knowledge of the material world; the point of showing this was to erect on the science of human nature a utilitarian ethics in which f...
John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism
"[A] brilliant intellectual biography. . . . Ryan submits incisive, compressed accounts of Dewey's important works and, with considerable flair, describes the major political debates into which Dewey entered. Ryan has an expert historian's grasp on the major events of the century and weaves them skillfully through Dewey's life story." --Mark Edmundson, Washington Post Book World
Politics and Truth
Considers the contested concept of truth in contemporary politics in light of the postmodernist challenge to Enlightenment ideals and examines the treatment of truth in an unusual lineup of thinkers ranging from Plato and Hobbes to Weber, Foucault, and Arendt.
Cast a Cold Eye
Jack Quinlan, an American writer, travels to a small village in the remote western part of Ireland to research a book on the Irish Famine. The quiet, picturesque village seems just the place to spend a few months writing, but beneath its placid exterior lurk dark secrets. Why do the locals behave so strangely? What is Father Henning, the enigmatic parish priest, hiding? And what is the meaning of the strange ritual Jack observes in the cemetery? The search for answers will lead him to the terrifying discovery that the ghosts of the past linger on in the present, and they cry out for blood ... An atmospheric, haunting ghost story, Cast a Cold Eye (1984) is a slow burn horror novel that will keep readers in suspense until its chilling conclusion.
Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics
The study of politics seems endlessly beset by debates about method. At the core of these debates is a single unifying concern: should political scientists view themselves primarily as scientists, developing ever more sophisticated tools and studying only those phenomena to which such tools may fruitfully be applied? Or should they instead try to illuminate the large, complicated, untidy problems thrown up in the world, even if the chance to offer definitive explanations is low? Is there necessarily a tension between these two endeavours? Are some domains of political inquiry more amenable to the building up of reliable, scientific knowledge than others, and if so, how should we deploy our efforts? In this book, some of the world's most prominent students of politics offer original discussions of these pressing questions, eschewing narrow methodological diatribes to explore what political science is and how political scientists should aspire to do their work.
Good and Bad Power
What is it exactly that makes a governments good or bad? One of Britain's leading theoreticians and practitioners of government explains how governments work, how they should work, and why good government matters.
On Machiavelli
Contains a chronology of Machiavelli's life, an introduction and text by Alan Ryan that provides context and analysis, and key excerpts from Machiavelli's The Prince and his Discourses.
The Reactionary Mind
Now updated to include Trump's election and the rise of global populism, Corey Robin's 'The Reactionary Mind' traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution.
