What was 'revolutionary' in the process by which the thirteen North American colonies affirmed their independence? What is it about that 'revolution' that still colours the way in which Americans engage in politics? Dick Howard, author of The Marxian Legacy, Defining the Political and The Politics of Critique uses a similar framework to look at America. What is the political, how does a critique of the present become a politics for the future, and especially, what becomes of radical politics once it abandons the economistic promises of Marxism? This book originally published in French, as part of the political debate leading up to the bi-centenary of the French Revolution, was awarded the 'Prix Littraire de l'Association France-tats-Unis.' The present English edition includes a new Introduction and an Afterword relating the author's argument to the two crucial novelties of American politics: the invention of a party system, and the institution of judicial review.

This book traces a dialectic relationship between "politics" and "antipolitics," the first, as used here, being akin to philosophy as an activity of open inquiry, plural democracy, and truth-finding, and the latter in the realm of ideology, technocracy, and presupposed certainties. It returns back to the emergence of a New Left movement in the 1960s in order to follow the history of this relationship since then. It addresses contemporary debates by looking to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Bloc, and asking in the wake of that: what is a revolution? Finally, it draws on these analyses to examine the age of terrorism after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, and resounds with a call to pursue democracy and real politics in the face of new forms of antipolitics.

Global society has been analyzed in any number of ways: books dealing with its economic and cultural implications flood the market. But Planetary Politics highlights something unique. It explores globalization with an eye on the transformation of politics into a planetary enterprise. Unifying this collection is a political purpose: the attempt to engage in progressive fashion the dominant trends, the terrible excesses, and the positive prospects in a decidedly new era marked by the transition from a corrosive interplay between nation-states to a burgeoning planetary politics. Bringing together the work of major scholars with national and international reputations, this exciting new work offers perspectives for dealing with the complexity of power in the planetary life of the new millennium.

The Marxian Legacy, first published in 1977 and released in a second edition in 1988, was and remains distinct in its view of Marxian theory as 'critique, ' aware of its own origins and limitations and self-conscious about its own historical rootedness in changing social and political conditions. This new and fully revised third edition retains the original synthesis of the divergent traditions of German, critical, and French Marxisms into a living Marxian legacy that changes and reconceptualizes itself, while also providing a new critical introduction and concluding chapter. Such a re-evaluation of the Marxian legacy, which was urgent in the 1970s when the United States was caught up in imperial wars and domestic as well as racial conflict, remains relevant today when-as was the case nearly half a century ago-Marx's legacy has largely been forgotten and yet remains as a symbol of radical thinking that could inspire the new movements. The Marxian Legacy, 3rd Edition retains the freshness of discovery from those times while fully updating the text for our contemporary moment, and adding two features: a philosophical closure; and, a perspective on what was possible then, and what remains to be done today.

Analyzes the relation of philosophy and politics, and illustrates this by a reinterpretation of Kant, Hegel and Marx. On the basis of a retrospective reading of Kant's theory of reflective judgement, a concept of a system beyond philosophy is developed to study modern democratic policies.

How do people excluded from political life achieve political agency? Through a series of historical events that have been mostly overlooked by political theorists, Martin Breaugh identifies fleeting yet decisive instances of emancipation in which people took it upon themselves to become political subjects. Emerging during the Roman plebs's first secession in 494 BCE, the plebeian experience consists of an underground or unexplored configuration of political strategies to obtain political freedom. The people reject domination through political praxis and concerted action, therefore establishing an alternative form of power. Breaugh's study concludes in the nineteenth century and integrates ideas from sociology, philosophy, history, and political science. Organized around diverse case studies, his work undertakes exercises in political theory to show how concepts provide a different understanding of the meaning of historical events and our political present. The Plebeian Experience describes a recurring phenomenon that clarifies struggles for emancipation throughout history, expanding research into the political agency of the many and shedding light on the richness of radical democratic struggles from ancient Rome to Occupy Wall Street and beyond.

The Marxian Legacy, first published in 1977 and released in a second edition in 1988, was and remains distinct in its view of Marxian theory as 'critique, ' aware of its own origins and limitations and self-conscious about its own historical rootedness in changing social and political conditions. This new and fully revised third edition retains the original synthesis of the divergent traditions of German, critical, and French Marxisms into a living Marxian legacy that changes and reconceptualizes itself, while also providing a new critical introduction and concluding chapter. Such a re-evaluation of the Marxian legacy, which was urgent in the 1970s when the United States was caught up in imperial wars and domestic as well as racial conflict, remains relevant today when-as was the case nearly half a century ago-Marx's legacy has largely been forgotten and yet remains as a symbol of radical thinking that could inspire the new movements. The Marxian Legacy, 3rd Edition retains the freshness of discovery from those times while fully updating the text for our contemporary moment, and adding two features: a philosophical closure; and, a perspective on what was possible then, and what remains to be done today.

"Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy" ties together the central concerns of the work of Claude Lefort over the past half-century. A pivotal figure in French thought, Lefort studied under Maurice Merleau-Ponty, cofounded with Cornelius Castoriadis the influential journal "Socialisme ou Barbarie," and famously engaged in a heated debate with Jean-Paul Sartre over the Soviet Union and Communist parties in the West. He has influenced generations of political thinkers and throughout his career has offered invaluable leftist, non-communist critiques of both liberalism and Communism.

It is the prevailing belief that the death of communism was a victory for liberal democracy. In "Complications," however, Lefort challenges this interpretation and provides new ways of understanding the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the Communist phenomenon. Lefort engages the work of prominent historians Martin Malia and FranAois Furet and shows how their emphasis on "illusion" and ideology led to their failure to understand the logic and workings of the Communist Party, and its impact on Soviet society, and the reasons why so many in the West had Communist sympathies. He also maintains that those who regard the end of Communism as the triumph of markets and "freedom" restrict the scope of democratic thought and the possibility of greater social equality.

Lefort contends that Communism must be seen as part of a larger history of modernity and believes that the diagnosis of its death is dangerous to the future of democracy. In the tradition of Hannah Arendt and Raymond Aron, Lefort complicates the pieties of historical understanding and offers a new approach to thinking abouttotalitarianism and a more vital democracy.

How do people excluded from political life achieve political agency? Through a series of historical events that have been mostly overlooked by political theorists, Martin Breaugh identifies fleeting yet decisive instances of emancipation in which people took it upon themselves to become political subjects. Emerging during the Roman plebs's first secession in 494 BCE, the plebeian experience consists of an underground or unexplored configuration of political strategies to obtain political freedom. The people reject domination through political praxis and concerted action, therefore establishing an alternative form of power. Breaugh's study concludes in the nineteenth century and integrates ideas from sociology, philosophy, history, and political science. Organized around diverse case studies, his work undertakes exercises in political theory to show how concepts provide a different understanding of the meaning of historical events and our political present. The Plebeian Experience describes a recurring phenomenon that clarifies struggles for emancipation throughout history, expanding research into the political agency of the many and shedding light on the richness of radical democratic struggles from ancient Rome to Occupy Wall Street and beyond.

Published more than twenty years ago, Stephen Eric Bronner's bold defense of socialism remains one of the best texts to reframe the movement for modern audiences. Treating socialism as an ethic and reclaiming its early intellectual foundations, while acknowledging and correcting its inherent flaws, Bronner advances a more robust theory of working-class politics for the twenty-first century.

Unfolding chronologically, Bronner's study revisits the labor movement's pivotal figures--Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, Vladimir Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg--and the major themes governing their work. He identifies the contributions of these individuals but also their missteps, particularly the moments in which critical innovation gave way to dogma, muddying the meaning of core principles and practices. Bronner confronts a host of controversial issues, including the relationship between class and social movements, institutional accountability and participation, and economic justice and market imperatives; the problematic processes of revolution and reform; and the tensions between internationalism and identity. Adding a new introduction examining the revival of socialist theory and the evolution of labor politics over the past three decades, Bronner's classic treatise furthers the intellectual development of a genuinely progressive politics.

Ernest Renan was one of the leading lights of the Parisian intellectual scene in the second half of the nineteenth century. A philologist, historian, and biblical scholar, he was a prominent voice of French liberalism and secularism. Today most familiar in the English-speaking world for his 1882 lecture “What Is a Nation?” and its definition of a nation as an “everyday plebiscite,” Renan was a major figure in the debates surrounding the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, and the birth of the Third Republic and had a profound influence on thinkers across the political spectrum who grappled with the problem of authority and social organization in the new world wrought by the forces of modernization. What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings is the first English-language anthology of Renan’s political thought. Offering a broad selection of Renan’s writings from several periods of his public life, most previously untranslated, it restores Renan to his place as one of France’s major liberal thinkers and gives vital critical context to his views on nationalism. The anthology illuminates the characteristics that distinguished nineteenth-century French liberalism from its English and American counterparts as well as the more controversial parts of Renan’s legacy, including his analysis of colonial expansion, his views on Islam and Judaism, and the role of race in his thought. The volume contains a critical introduction to Renan’s life and work as well as detailed annotations that assist in recovering the wealth and complexity of his thought.

This book traces a dialectic relationship between "politics" and "antipolitics," the first, as used here, being akin to philosophy as an activity of open inquiry, plural democracy, and truth-finding, and the latter in the realm of ideology, technocracy, and presupposed certainties. It returns back to the emergence of a New Left movement in the 1960s in order to follow the history of this relationship since then. It addresses contemporary debates by looking to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Bloc, and asking in the wake of that: what is a revolution? Finally, it draws on these analyses to examine the age of terrorism after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, and resounds with a call to pursue democracy and real politics in the face of new forms of antipolitics.

In this rethinking of Marxism and its blind spots, Dick Howard argues that the collapse of European communism in 1989 should not be identified with a victory for capitalism and makes possible a wholesale reevaluation of democratic politics in the U.S. and abroad. The author turns to the American and French Revolutions to uncover what was truly "revolutionary" about those events, arguing that two distinct styles of democratic life emerged, the implications of which were misinterpreted in light of the rise of communism.

Howard uses a critical rereading of Marx as a theorist of democracy to offer his audience a new way to think about this political ideal. He argues that it is democracy, rather than Marxism, that is radical and revolutionary, and that Marx could have seen this but did not. In Part I, Howard explores the attraction Marxism held for intellectuals, particularly French intellectuals, and he demonstrates how the critique of totalitarianism from a Marxist viewpoint allowed these intellectuals to see the radical nature of democracy. Part II examines two hundred years of democratic political life -- comparing America's experience as a democracy to that of France. Part III offers a rethinking of Marx's contribution to democratic politics. Howard concludes that Marx was attempting a "philosophy by other means," and that paradoxically, just because he was such an astute philosopher, Marx was unable to see the radical political implications of his own analyses. The philosophically justified "revolution" turns out to be the basis of an anti-politics whose end was foreshadowed by the fall of European communism in 1989.

For the eight hundredth anniversary of the Magna Carta, the University of Virginia Press presents the first paperback edition of The Road from Runnymede by A.E. Dick Howard, originally published in 1968. In this volume, Howard explores the ways in which the Magna Carta's concepts, most notably due process, have been absorbed and put into practice by English and especially American society. He goes on to show how the idea of constitutional government evolved in America, moving beyond the foundations laid by the Magna Carta to adapt itself to the new republic's needs.

A classic classroom reference since its 1964 publication, this indispensable volume offers the full text of Magna Carta in English, as well as a chapter-by-chapter discussion of its history and provisions.

In his newly revised commentary on this founding document in the history of constitutionally limited governments, A.E. Dick Howard places the charter in context of the extraordinary surge of constitutionalism in the aftermath of the Cold War. Magna Carta: Text and Commentary is a cogent introduction to Magna Carta that students everywhere can readily appreciate.

The conflict between politics and antipolitics has replayed throughout Western history and philosophical thought. From the beginning, Plato's quest for absolute certainty led him to denounce democracy, an anti-political position challenged by Aristotle. In his wide-ranging narrative, Dick Howard puts this dilemma into fresh perspective, proving our contemporary political problems are not as unique as we think.

Howard begins with democracy in ancient Greece and the rise and fall of republican politics in Rome. In the wake of Rome's collapse, political thought searched for a new medium, and the conflict between politics and antipolitics reemerged through the contrasting theories of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas. During the Renaissance and Reformation, the emergence of the modern individual again transformed the terrain of the political. Even so, politics vs. antipolitics dominated the period, frustrating even Machiavelli, who sought to reconceptualize the nature of political thought. Hobbes and Locke, theorists of the social contract, then reenacted the conflict, which Rousseau sought (in vain) to overcome. Adam Smith and the growth of modern economic liberalism, the radicalism of the French revolution, and the conservative reaction of Edmund Burke subsequently marked the triumph of antipolitics, while the American Revolution momentarily offered the potential for a renewal of politics. Taken together, these historical examples, viewed through the prism of philosophy, reveal the roots of today's political climate and the trajectory of battles yet to come.

Published more than twenty years ago, Stephen Eric Bronner's bold defense of socialism remains one of the best texts to reframe the movement for modern audiences. Treating socialism as an ethic and reclaiming its early intellectual foundations, while acknowledging and correcting its inherent flaws, Bronner advances a more robust theory of working-class politics for the twenty-first century.

Unfolding chronologically, Bronner's study revisits the labor movement's pivotal figures--Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, Vladimir Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg--and the major themes governing their work. He identifies the contributions of these individuals but also their missteps, particularly the moments in which critical innovation gave way to dogma, muddying the meaning of core principles and practices. Bronner confronts a host of controversial issues, including the relationship between class and social movements, institutional accountability and participation, and economic justice and market imperatives; the problematic processes of revolution and reform; and the tensions between internationalism and identity. Adding a new introduction examining the revival of socialist theory and the evolution of labor politics over the past three decades, Bronner's classic treatise furthers the intellectual development of a genuinely progressive politics.

In this rethinking of Marxism and its blind spots, Dick Howard argues that the collapse of European communism in 1989 should not be identified with a victory for capitalism and makes possible a wholesale reevaluation of democratic politics in the U.S. and abroad. The author turns to the American and French Revolutions to uncover what was truly "revolutionary" about those events, arguing that two distinct styles of democratic life emerged, the implications of which were misinterpreted in light of the rise of communism.

Howard uses a critical rereading of Marx as a theorist of democracy to offer his audience a new way to think about this political ideal. He argues that it is democracy, rather than Marxism, that is radical and revolutionary, and that Marx could have seen this but did not. In Part I, Howard explores the attraction Marxism held for intellectuals, particularly French intellectuals, and he demonstrates how the critique of totalitarianism from a Marxist viewpoint allowed these intellectuals to see the radical nature of democracy. Part II examines two hundred years of democratic political life -- comparing America's experience as a democracy to that of France. Part III offers a rethinking of Marx's contribution to democratic politics. Howard concludes that Marx was attempting a "philosophy by other means," and that paradoxically, just because he was such an astute philosopher, Marx was unable to see the radical political implications of his own analyses. The philosophically justified "revolution" turns out to be the basis of an anti-politics whose end was foreshadowed by the fall of European communism in 1989.

The City in Southeast Asia explores the ways of moving beyond outmoded paradigms of the Third World City. Under "Patterns," the authors look at the "global cities" of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur, and then the national capitals of Bangkok, Jakarta, and Manila, in relation to the second cities of Chiang Mai, Surabaya, Cebu, and Penang. "Processes" focuses upon the privitization of climate through air-conditioned environments, the industrialization of consumption in the form of large shopping malls, the role of cities as platforms for the globalization strategies of Asian multinationals, and the contest at street-level between public and private space. Finally, "Policy" addresses governance and markets with regard to key issues in urban and land-use planning. Peter Rimmer and Howard Dick jointly bring to this volume seventy-years experience of working on urban and regional development in Southeast Asia. Their multidisciplinary analysis of the urban impacts of globalization draws on geography, economics, and history to bring the cities of Southeast Asia into a wider international discourse with implications for research, business, and policy.