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RR 2015/169 The Encyclopedia of Political Thought Editor in chief Michael T. Gibbons Wiley Blackwell Malden, MA and Oxford 2015 8 vols. ISBN 978 1 4051 9129 6 £989 $1,275 Also available electronically as part of the Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/ 9781118474396 ISBN 9781118474396)
Keywords Encyclopedias, Political philosophy
Review DOI 10.1108/RR-12-2014-0352
A particular challenge for anyone studying political thought is to get a clear understanding of how practical politics blends with political theory and philosophy. These two strands constantly intermix as, for instance, ideas and issues about practical politics (political and social movements, political order, public sphere, resistance and revolution, liberalism) both draw on and imply ideas and issues about political theory and philosophy (natural law, necessity, identity and the self, human dignity, civic virtue, pragmatism, reason). Into both come the many writers and thinkers, commentators and political actors familiar in the whole field of politics, from Plato to Rawls, from Kant to Lyotard, from Hegel and Heidegger and Lenin to Oakeshott and Sandei and Zizek. A wide-ranging field, then, as this encyclopedia demonstrates - in its comprehensive coverage as well as in its helpful "lexicon" of thematic categories provided early in volume one (typically, contemporary, democracy, economics, Europe, feminism, foundations, international relations, liberalism, major thinkers, morality and ethics, philosophy and political theory, political repression, religion and schools of thought, many of which overlap in subtle ways).
The outlay on a work such as this compels any likely buyer to examine coverage and tone, editorial approach and searchability very carefully indeed. Questions like "what does it offer distinctively?" and "is it worth the money?" are bound to be uppermost in the mind. The opportunity cost of buying such works is considerable (e.g. other things forgone). So an overview to get us started: this is an eight-volume set with entries on over 900 topics. Contributors come from around the world and, its introduction states, "its purpose is to provide a comprehensive resource of political thought for under-graduates, many graduate students, and the lay public. It will also be useful to those scholars in need of greater background in a particular area of political thought. Toward that end, the entries have been written in such a way as to minimize the expectation of substantial knowledge of the...