In this innovative work, Ellen Meiksins Wood reinterprets the history of political theory, from Plato to Rousseau. Addressing classical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not merely in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time. She identifies a distinctive relationship between property and the state in the history of the West and shows how the canon, although largely the work of members or clients of the ruling classes, was shaped by complex interactions among owners, workers, and states. Western political theory, Wood argues, owes much of its vitality, as well as many uncertainties, to these complex and often contradictory relationships.

In the first volume, she traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages from the perspective of social history—a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. From the ancient Greek city of Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, through Cicero's Roman Republic and the Empire of St. Paul and St. Augustine, to the medieval world of Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham, Wood offers a rich, dynamic exploration of thinkers and ideas that have left an indelible mark on the modern world.

In the second volume, Wood examines the formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Enlightenment, all attributed to this "early modern" period. Almost everything about the history of this period remains contested, but one thing is certain: it left a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in the history of the West. The concepts of freedom, equality, property, human rights, and revolution that emerged in these tumultuous centuries continue to shape, and constrain, political discourse today.

Assessing the work and background of philosophers like Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Spinoza, the Levellers, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, Ellen Wood lively explores the ideas of classical thinkers not as philosophical abstractions but as passionate responses to the social conflicts of their time.

Pages: 592, Year of Publication: 1101, Dimensions: 14x14cm