History of Political Thought: A Thematic Introduction

John Morrow, History of Political Thought: A Thematic Introduction (London: Macmillan, 1998), xi + 417 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0 333 53221 4.

The ideal textbook would meet a suite of well-nigh contradictory criteria. John Morrow's History of Political Thought, is not ideal, but is nevertheless impressive, and will be a valuable resource for students and scholars working in the spaces between history, philosophy, and politics. The author has come up with an original strategy for organising this complex material. Using a thematic structure, or more precisely a blend of thematic and `great thinker' approaches, he seeks to display political thought as a trans-temporal and cross-cultural conversation. In form the book sticks to a commonsense Aristotelianism, the first three parts attending respectively to the why, who and how of politics, while a fourth part focuses...