Motivated by the reentry of tyranny into political discourse and political action, this new collection of essays compares ancient and contemporary accounts of tyranny in an effort to find responses to current political dilemmas and enduring truths. Identified by Plato and Aristotle as the worst kind of regime, the concept of tyranny was called into question during the Enlightenment and finally rejected in the 20th century as questions of good and evil were separated from facts-the proper domain for political science. However, in our globally interconnected world, tyrants are no longer dangerous solely to their subjects and neighbors, but to all. Confronting Tyranny brings together distinguished scholars to explore the lessons of classical political philosophy for the present political crisis of understanding and action.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

This book explores a little-noticed tradition in the history of European political thought. From Plato to Aristotle to Tacitus and Machiavelli, and from Tocqueville to Max Weber and Hannah Arendt, political thinkers have examined the tyrannies of their times and have wondered how these tyrannies come about, how they work, and how they might be defeated. In examining this perennial problem of tyranny, Roger Boesche looks at how these thinkers borrowed from the past--thus entering into an established dialogue--to analyze the present. Although obviously tyrannies are not identical over time (Hitler certainly did not rule as Nero), we can learn partial lessons from past thinkers that can help us to better understand twentieth-century tyrannies.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

One of the country's foremost Tocqueville scholars, Roger Boesche has gathered together his writings on Tocqueville from the last quarter century. These essays focus on specific aspects of Tocqueville's political thought: the methodology that Tocqueville brought to his historical and political writings allowing him to predict so well; his assumptions about what constitutes a revolution; his conviction that democracy and commerce at times work against each other; why Tocqueville's thought defies our modern political classifications; his fear of a qualitatively new kind of despotism; and Tocqueville's predictions for the future compared to those of Nietzsche, Arendt, and others. Tocqueville's Road Map is a long overdue addition to Tocqueville scholarship that will find an audience amongst scholars of political thought and history.

Motivated by the reentry of tyranny into political discourse and political action, this new collection of essays compares ancient and contemporary accounts of tyranny in an effort to find responses to current political dilemmas and enduring truths. Identified by Plato and Aristotle as the worst kind of regime, the concept of tyranny was called into question during the Enlightenment and finally rejected in the 20th century as questions of good and evil were separated from facts-the proper domain for political science. However, in our globally interconnected world, tyrants are no longer dangerous solely to their subjects and neighbors, but to all. Confronting Tyranny brings together distinguished scholars to explore the lessons of classical political philosophy for the present political crisis of understanding and action.

The First Great Political Realist is a succinct and penetrating analysis of one of the ancient world's foremost political realists, Kautilya. Kautilya's treatise Arthashastra stands as one of the great political books of the ancient world, its ideas on the science of politics strikingly similar to those of Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Clausewitz, and even Sun Tsu. Roger Boesche's excellent commentary on Kautilya's voluminous text draws out the essential realist arguments for modern political analysis and demonstrates the continued relevance of Kautilya's work to modern Indian strategic thinking and our understanding of the relationship between politics and economics. Striking a balance between textual analysis and secondary scholarship, Boesche's work will be an enduring contribution to the study of ancient Indian history, Eastern political thought, and international relations.