Politics: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #008

by Kenneth Minogue

In A Very Short Introduction to Politics , Kenneth Minogue begins with a discussion of issues arising from a historical account of politics, and goes on to offer chapters dealing with the Ancient Greeks and the idea of citizenship; Roman law; medieval Christianity and individualism; freedom since Machiavelli and Hobbes; the challenge of ideologies; democracy, oligarchy, and bureaucracy; power and order in modern society; and politics in the West.

About the Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, History, Political Science, Reference, Audiobook

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Political theorist who was Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Honorary Fellow at the London School of Economics.

Reviews

[فؤاد · Rating 3 out of 5]

۱.
حقیقتش یک اشتباه باعث شد من این کتاب رو بردارم. من کتاب "فلسفۀ سیاسی" از این مجموعه رو می خواستم، که قبلاً توی ریویوهای گودریدز تعریفش رو خونده بودم. اما اون لحظه حواسم نبود، و وقتی این رو توی قفسه دیدم فکر کردم این همونه و بر داشتمش.
کتاب خوبیه، ولی اون قدر که باید واضح نیست. مثلاً تاریخ سیاست رو می گه و از آزادی خواهی یونانی شروع می کنه، بعد افتخار و عظمت خواهی رومی رو شرح می ده و بعد پیدایش فردیت در قرون وسطا و مسیحیت رو توضیح می ده. اما مخصوصاً در این بخش سوم خیلی آشفته می شه و نمی شه دقیق خط فکری نویسنده رو دنبال کرد، و آخرش آدم درست متوجه نمی شه که چطور مسیحیت منجر به ظهور فردیت شد.

۲.
کتاب جنبه های مختلف سیاست رو شرح و بسط می ده. مخصوصاً یکی از بخش هایی که برای من جالب بود، جایی بود که می گفت: انسان در ابتدا یک یا دو هویت داشت. مثلاً در دوران روم، افراد هویت شخصی و دینی جداگانه ای نداشتن، بلکه هویت سیاسی و هویت شخصی و دینی شون یکی بود، و به خاطر همین تمام فعالیت هاشون در جهت عظمت و اعتلای روم بود.
اما از دوره ای، کم کم هویت شخصی از هویت سیاسی جدا شد. یه کم بعد هویت دینی هم از هویت سیاسی جدا شد، و فرد در یک سری امور تابع دولت بود و در یک سری امور تابع کلیسا. بعد هویت اقتصادی، هویت اجتماعی، و... هم از هویت سیاسی جدا شدن و هر فرد مجموعی شد از هویت های تکه پارۀ مختلف که به هم ارتباطی نداشتن و حتی گاهی با هم تعارض داشتن. مثلاً کسی ممکن بود از نظر دینی کاتولیک معتقد باشه، از نظر اقتصادی کارگر معترض به دولت باشه، از نظر اجتماعی فلان باشه، و...
و مؤلف توضیح می داد که یکی از اهداف نظریات آرمانگرایانه، اینه که این هویت ها رو با هم یکی کنن، و انسان رو به دوران خوش قدیم برگردونن، دورانی که هویت ها با هم یکی بودن و چندپارگی هویتی وجود نداشت. مثلاً مارکسیسم به دنبال یکی کردن هویت اقتصادی با هویت سیاسیه، جنبش های افراطی دینی به دنبال یکی کردن هویت دینی با هویت سیاسی هستن، و همین طور الی آخر...

۳.
نمی تونم کتاب رو به طور قطع توصیه کنم. بعضی بخش های خوب داشت، بعضی بخش های بی اهمیت تر. بعضی بخش ها مخصوصاً انگار برای بچه ها نوشته شده بود، از بس که نویسنده مفاهیم ابتدایی سیاست رو بسط داده بود. مخصوصاً بخش های آخر که به موضوعاتی مثل "چطور فعال سیاسی باشیم" و "چطور تحلیل سیاسی کنیم" می پرداخت به نظر خیلی این مشکل رو داشتن. همچنان فکر می کنم اگه کتاب فلسفۀ سیاسی رو بر می داشتم بیشتر ازش استفاده می کردم. ولی این هم برای مطالعۀ یک روزه بد نبود.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Governments wishing to claim credit for all good things, an oppositions wishing to dispense blame for all bad things, have colluded in spreading the idea that all things, good and bad, are caused by political policies."
- Kenneth Minogue, Politics: VSI



Vol N° 8 of Oxford's Very Short Introductins series, Politics, is a well-written if slightly in the woods VSI. As someone who got their masters in public policy, there wasn't anything really new here, but what Minogue writes, he writes with wit and style (and occasional brilliance).

I enjoyed his review of the history of politics (Greeks, Romans, Christianity, all the way to modern states) and his focus on the experience of politics. There are a million ways to approach such a broad subject as politics, and while this introduction might not be everyone's tea, I quite enjoyed it. MInoque said it better "the author fully realizes that one man's error is likely to be another's enthusiastic commitment."

[Alireza · Rating 2 out of 5]

کتاب سخت‌خوان و ثقیلی بود و با اینکه مختصر بود و حجم کمی داشت، خوندنش طول کشید.
راستش هدف نویسنده رو خیلی خوب درک نکردم، از همه‌جای سیاست صحبت میشه.
یکی دو فصل اول با ایده‌ی خوبی شروع میشه و انتظار داشتم با همین قدرت بیاد جلو ولی از یه جایی انگار از دست نویسنده رها میشه و از هر دری صحبت میکنه
به نظر میاد نویسنده طرفدار تئوری استبداد شرقی هستش و بخش‌های اول کتاب رو با این ایده می‌بره جلو. در کل هم بیشتر در مورد سیاست اروپا صحبت میشه که بعضی بخش‌هاش برای خواننده‌های ناآشنا با تاریخ جزئی کشورهایی مثل فرانسه و انگلیس، گیج‌کننده میشه.
راستش شاید خیلی این کتاب رو به کسی توصیه نکنم و کتاب فلسفه سیاسی از این مجموعه رو بیشتر پسندیدم

[Manik Sukoco · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first time that I read a book from the "Very Short Introductions" of the Oxford University Press and it sure made up for what it promised. A very well introduction on that abstract concept called politics.
Because it was such a small book, only 110 small pages, I expected a quick read, a snack for the hungry reader, something that you read in one zip. But that turned out to be a mistake. This is not an American style book, which tent to be somewhat gentler to the reader, but the English style, shorter and more to the point. But don't get me wrong, this is a very well written book and explains the many involved concepts and insights very well, in an incredible short amount of time.
The books starts by explaining what is not politics, despotism is not politics Minogue tells us and uses history to explain. How better to explain the nature of things by the history of it? He tells us about how the Greeks organized politics, how the Romans changed it and what kind of transformation the Christian idears changed our political culture into something we have today. As the history becomes more recent he starts to explain important political concepts as the modern state, political doctrine, the role of justice and morality. One of the last chapters in the book is about political ideology, which I found one of the best of the book. The book ends with the future of politics and describes the clash between ideology and politics.
As is inevitable in a book on politics, the writer him self has his own belief system he likes most and before I bought the book, I did some googling on the author. Minogue seems to be a English political conservative. But after reading the book, I can tell you that he never lowers him self to take cheap shots at non-conservative contemporary political parties. This is a very well balanced book that is most of all, non ideological in nature.
An other reviewer, criticizes the book because Minogue writes in one off the best chapters in his book: that ideology is the opposite of politics. Minogue argues that ideology is a closed belief system that brings solutions and that political doctrines are not, although enthusiast of some political doctrines can transform it into an ideology. The main distinction he says is that political doctrines, don't bring solutions but influence your decision that are based on options that reality gives you, but an ideology brings solutions, and that means that one's actions can be based on the belief system alone and can ignores the considerations that reality provides (The solution follows from the doctrine). Thus, it is a fine line between ideology and political doctrines political parties adhere. A fine line, that this other reviewer, does not even seem to recognize, although Minogue, does a very much better job in explaining these concepts than I just did!
This book was a delight to read! I highly recommend it!

[Clif · Rating 4 out of 5]

The word political has many uses. One refers to pandering to voters. For example, we often hear someone decry an action as, "just a political move", meaning something done to appeal to voters, or we hear that something is "politically correct"; designed not to offend voters. These uses of the word as an insult are not addressed here. Kenneth Minogue is interested in the most basic meaning of politics, as a practice.

I've always thought of politics as the contest for power. Minogue tells us that it is the pursuit of policy by means of persuasion. There is no politics under a dictatorship because policy is the choice of one person. With royalty one may have court politics, but that is only the contest for the favor of the monarch. With the extension of power to the citizenry in the Greek city-states, and later the forced acceptance by the king of the wishes of the nobility in Europe, true politics appeared. We can think of history as the expansion of politics to ever greater numbers of people.

This book follows the practice of politics and the thinking underlying it over the centuries. It is not a snappy read because the author is bound by the need for brevity to be concise. That sounds like a contradiction. If you are writing a "very short introduction" then shouldn't it be simple to read? No, not if you are taking on a complex topic and are drawing upon a deep understanding of it, as one would expect from an Oxford scholar. But that's what keeps things interesting. You are in a small part (introduction) of a large gold mine (politics), and you have to keep a sharp eye open for all the nuggets to be found.

Should people in great numbers be trusted to determine the course of a nation, or does this lead only to confusion and eventual seizure of power by the few with a definite idea of how to run things? Can there be a permanent form of government? The Greek, Polybius, thought that government passes through phases with each form going from success to eventual failure from its own contradictions, to be replaced by another in an endless cycle of replacement.

In the United States we cannot imagine having anything other than the system we've known, but we are seeing threats to democracy from many sources - by wealth corrupting our election process, by general apathy from the electorate that hands over control to the small number with a financial imperative to steer legislation, by absolutists who will stop the operation of government rather than compromise.

Our ship of state is threatened by rocks on all sides. Because we the people are ultimately responsible, this book is a valuable backgrounder on what it is we should be trying to preserve - the use of reason by way of persuasion to arrive at the best compromise between parties in dispute over the best course for the community.

There is a fascinating account of the vital role Christianity played in bridging the time from the fall of Rome to the Enlightenment. The "dark ages" was a critical period in the development of the concept of the responsible individual and the rights due him. The idea that all are equals in the eyes of God, each one working on the salvation of the soul, started equality on the way to a more broad, secular interpretation.

The political "Left" and the "Right" are familiar to everyone today. In this book you will find out how the terms started. You'll also follow the establishment of the state and find out the difficulty with having a single world government placed in power over all states.

Human nature comes in for examination - are we creatures that must be cowed into behaving well toward one another, or are we naturally benevolent but corrupted by power?

Covered last is ideology - the modern concept that is a refutation of politics because it puts aside compromise in favor of one grand scheme explaining everything, that promises the best possible future under a scientific approach to human behavior. Under an ideology if there are those who object they must be managed. Management inevitably reaches ever deeper into private life for the sake of the common good. Will freedom or equality triumph?

Meaty ideas, well presented. But take it slowly to digest it thoroughly. It's such a short book, you can easily read it twice.

[Jafar Isbarov · Rating 2 out of 5]

"...What is universally moral may be fatal to a specific culture."

Kenneth Minogue is totally frank in his political opinions - that is rare. But I have right not to care about opinions of the author if I am reading an introductory book, don't I?

First part of the book is an attempt to give an idea of political history. Second part is blend of random essays on politics adjusted for kindergarten and written by Shakespeare. Ending is, as author says, "an example of political theory, an argument likely to provoke disagreement."

This book didn't introduce me to politics at all.

[Danil Thorstensson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot that people of all political backgrounds can enjoy and learn from this book, particularly the author’s treatment of political history in the first half of the book. However, it has to be remembered that even with an authoritative title and framing, a book like this will always shelter the personal political beliefs of the author as well as the time in which it is written. As a liberal conservative, the author brings his particular set of beliefs (which constitutes an ideology, no matter the attempts made to frame liberalism and conservative as non-ideological) and the time period (the mid-90s, a time in which many mainstream thinkers were proclaiming the “End of History” after the fall of Communism) into the book. It should therefore be read from this perspective and with a critical eye.
For instance, I am no Marxist, but it is clear that Minogue’s understanding of socialism comes from a particular Cold War perspective, in part due to his equation of the rich history of socialism with the despotic form it took in the various Marxist-Leninist parties of the 20th century. There is no mention of the current varied strands of left-wing politics and no discussion of the varieties of liberalism and conservativism in history and at the time of writing. This would have enriched the introduction and avoided the stereotyping that in part obfuscates the author’s own biases. In addition, his discussion of the current strands of political science betray a bias towards his particular school, hidden behind a feigned objectivity. One last thing is that there is a blatant Eurocentrism, which should be addressed somewhere in the text.
In general, although great in many respects, this book has to be seen in its particular authorial and temporal context.

[Fatemeh · Rating 1 out of 5]

مجموعه‌ی مختصر و مفید (Very Short Introductions) معمولاً با این هدف منتشر می‌شون که موضوعات پیچیده را به زبان ساده و قابل‌فهم برای عموم توضیح بدن . اما در مورد این کتاب بیشتر مختصر بود تا مفید.

هرچند فصول اول تا حدی امیدوارکننده بود ، اما به‌مرور ساختار کتاب به‌هم می‌ریزه . نویسنده مثل اینکه خودشم متوجه می‌شه که نمی‌تونه در این حجم محدود، سیاست را به‌صورت مؤثر توضیح بده و در نتیجه رویکردش را تغییر می‌ده بدون اینکه یک مسیر مشخص داشته باشه .

از یه جایی به بعد، متن بیشتر شبیه یک گفت‌وگوی تلویزیونی شلوغ و پلوغه که در اون یک کارشناس سیاسی ، صرفاً دیدگاه‌های شخصی‌اش را بیان می‌کند؛ بدون اینکه براش مهم باشه کسی چیزی می فهمه یا نه

اگر بخواهم کمی سخت‌گیرانه‌تر نگاه کنم، باید بگم که در برخی بخش‌ها، نژادپرستی هم به چشم می‌خوره. در نگاه نویسنده، به نظر می‌رسه که تنها اروپا از آغاز تاریخ تا امروز مسیر درستی پیموده و دیگر تمدن‌ها، اگر هم به اون ها اشاره شده، بیشتر به‌عنوان یک نمونه ناموفق برای تأکید بر برتری سیاست غربی مطرح شده‌.

[Jorg · Rating 1 out of 5]

While he gives a nice overview of a lot of different aspects of politics both concerning history and the actual underlying procedures, thoughts and processes, the author does a very poor job concealing his own opinions and in general has a very biased approach to different political ideas and theories. I would have expected more objectivity from a "Very short introduction"

[ანა · Rating 4 out of 5]

ხოდა, მეგობრებო, არ ყოფილა ეს პოლიტიკა "თლა" ცუდი...

[Osama · Rating 3 out of 5]

لا بأس به لكن يفتقر للتنظيم أحيانا

[Pedram · Rating 3 out of 5]

عنوان کتاب "سیاست" بود و از سری "مختصر و مفید" اما توقع من چیز دیگه ای بود. ترجمش سخت بود و کلماتی که به کار برده شده بود شاید برای منکه رشته تخصصیم نیست مشکل ایجاد میکرد. توی فصل اول میگفت که در حکومت های استبدادی، شهروندان اهل فکر به تصوف، رواقی‌گری، و دگیر انواع عزلت‌گزینی متوسل میشوند که دلیلی واسش ارائه نشد و من خیلی موافقش نبودم. جاهایی که توی کتاب برای من جالب بود و به فکرم انداخت رو اینجا میارم:
"با افزایش قدرت حکومت ها، تقریبا هرچیزی به نوعی "سیاسی" قلمداد میشود، چون حکموتها تمایل دارند همه کارهای خوب را به حساب خودشان بگذارند، و مخالفان حکومت نیز تمایل دارند تقصیر همه بدی ها را به گردن حکومت بیاندازند. حکومت ها و مخالفانشان دست به دست هم داده‌اند تا این اندیشه را که همه چیز، چه خوب، چه بد، نتیجه تصمیمات سیاسی است، در اذهان بپراکنند."
"انقلابیون هنرپیشه هایی هستند که عکسشان روی پوستر تاریخ می‌رود"
"ناسیونالیسم میگوید حق تعیین سرنوشت هر فرهنگی باید به دست خودش باشد."
"کلوویس یک روز که داشت به موعظه‌ای درباره مصلوب شدن مسیح گوش میکرد، نتوانست جلوی عصبانیت خودش را بگیرد و ناگهان بلند شد و فریاد زد: اگر من با فرانک هایم آنجا بودم این اتفاق هرگز نمی‌افتد."
"جنگ، بنا بر تعریف کلاوسویتس، ادامه سیاست است با ابزارهای دیگر"
"...مثلا هگل، با اینکه از جنگ دفاع نمیکرد، اما آن را مهد پرورش فضیلت های قهرمانانه میدانست"
"ترومن گفته است: بزرگ‌ترین قدرتی که رییس جمهور دارد قدرت ترغیب مردم به انجام کاری است که بدون ترغیب شدن هم باید همان‌کار را انجام میدادند."
"بعضا به این تمایزگذاری مبنایی زیست شناختی هم نسبت داده میشود: جوان‌ها مشتاق تغییر هستند، اما آدم ها هرچه مسن تر مشوند محافظه کارتر میشود. شکی نیست که گرایش جوان‌ها در سیاست شکل خاص بارزی دارد، آن ها عادتت دارند شور و شوق تمام نشدنی‌شان را صرف ایده های دگرگونی اجتماعیی کنند – همان کاری که ترک‌های جوان...علی الظاهر بدین ترتیب نباید جوانان را خیلی برای درگیر شدت در سیاست ترغیب و تشویق کرد."
"دموکراسی بعضی اوقات اسم شب آنهایی است که فکر میکنند اگر به دموکراسی واقعی برسیم(که هنوز نرسیده ایم)، همه مشکلات سیاسی حل خواهند شد. شاید بتوان گفت که اصلی ترین توهم ایدئولوژی این است: یک ساختار ممکن برای جامعه وجود دارد که دستیابی به آن به بازیگران منطقی اجازه میدهد که یک جهان شاد بسازند."
"این نظریه که همه چیز سیاسی است نشانه‌ای است قطعی از پروژه‌ی جایگزین کردن حکومت قانون با اداره کردن مردم."
"به بیان دیگر، در این شکل جدید از جامعه، انسان‌ها به ماده خامی بدل می‌شوند که باید بر اساس آخرین اندیشه های اخلاقی شکل داده شوند."

[George Vernon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kenneth is a biased writer. This would be forgiven if he were a good writer. Amusingly, he claims that the Suez canal ceased to be a British national interest after Indian independence, a rather transparent attempt at historical revisionism which hints at embarrassment over the events of 1956.

[olta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it’s a decent book. If you want to start learning a bit more about politics, this is a great choice. However, much of what this book does is touch upon major events and leave the deeper exploration for you to do on your own. It briefly introduces Greek and Roman philosophy and then proceeds to explain terminology relevant to the study.

[Daniel Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

While being an intriguing and provocative essay on modern democracy, this book is not really what it says on the cover, namely, an introduction to the academic discipline of political science - it isn't. I understand the word 'politics' to have nothing to do with democracy except incidentally; it is rather the study of the affairs of the polis. Minogue, exuberant as he is, barely touches on the idea.

[Alessandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent book, difficult to get through as it feels as if 500 pages worth of information has been condensed into 120 pages.

I did however like several parts of the book. Especially how political systems were structured in Ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire, both which I intend to read more about.

In summary, this is a great book for anyone looking for an outline of how to tackle the huge subject of politics.

[Muhamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

The four stars are mainly for Chapter 8 onwards. The book just got better and better towards the end and finished so strong. I am glad I read till the end.

"In an egalitarian world, everyone is equal, except perhaps the managers of equality."
My favorite quote from the book.

[Lydia Camp]

Fairly chill until his anti-ideology rant turned into a negation of the influence of institutions and an interpretation of political moralism as just a way to make us a weak and stupid and dependent electorate. Poses good questions overall though.

[ریچارد · Rating 3 out of 5]

انقدر خوندنش طول کشید که یادم نمیاد چه انتقادهایی میخواستم بکنم. دو فصل آخر خوب بود.
مطمئنم دیگه از اینکه کتاب های خلاصه نمیخونم چون لااقل من که چیزی یاد نمیگیرم ازشون

[Ollie]

Too political 😞

[ტუნგუსკა · Rating 3 out of 5]

ზოგადად, ამ სერიის წიგნები არ მომწონს. ზედმეტად ზედაპირული და რეალურად მონაცემებისა და გაუგებარი ტერმინების რახარუხია.
ეს კარგი იყო, შედარებით. თუ არ ჩავთვლით წინადადებების ალოგიკურ გადაბმებს. (ეგ ალბათ უფრო, ცუდი თარგმნის ბრალია)
პოლიტიკის მოკლე შესავალში უფრო მეტი ეწერა ქრისტიანობის გავლენებზე, ვიდრე იგივე სერიის ქრისტიანობის მოკლე შესავალში. ბევრი მოსაზრება, რომელთა განხილვაც საინტერესოს გახდიდა წიგნს, გაკვრითაა ნახსენები და 150 გვერდიდან 50 "აბსურდული" (ვციტირებ) თეორიების გადაღეჭვას მიეძღვნა.
იდეაში, მსგავსი სერიის წიგნები მოცემულ საკითხში აზრზე მოყვანას უნდა ემსახურებოდეს, მაგრამ საფუძვლიანი ცოდნის გარეშე ვერ იკითხება.
ბოლო 30 გვერდი საინტერესო იყო არადა...

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great overview of the origins of politics in Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages. Overreaches in the conclusion to vent as a proper British Burkean conservative, with disdain for pretty much everything.

[Will McManus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The bro is a bit verbose and throws around too many obscure references for my liking given it's "A Very Short Introduction." But once my dumb ass was able to figure out what he was saying with the help of Chat GPT it was actually pretty good.

[mady · Rating 3 out of 5]

read this all semester as my “textbook” for poli sci… some parts were interesting but as the book went on his opinion was much more obvious and he’s very anti socialism so :/

[Daria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Filozofia polityki opatrzona kontekstem historcznym w pigułce. Liczyłam w sumie na coś innego, co poszerzy moją wiedzę 😵‍💫

[Ella Barrett-McGuinness · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undoing my corporate brain rot 😵‍💫

[Shy · Rating 3 out of 5]

خب راستش کتاب بدی نیست

ولی مطالب بشدت آشفته اند. توی یک فصل ممکنه نویسنده درباره همه چی حرف بزنه به جز تایتل اون فصل😅 ولی نمیتونم بگم استفاده ای نکردم.

من صرفا برای شروع مطالعه سیاسی این کتاب رو خوندم ولی مطمئنا کتاب های بهتری برای شروع هستند.

[Boy Blue · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a pretty decent primer. The first few chapters are the best; in which Minogue tracks the development of politics from the Greeks, through the Romans, early Christian kingdoms, and into the modern state we now live in. Later he gets quite bogged down in what politics is not and how it's been bastardised in many ways. He's particularly allergic to calling other elements of life politics, or rather the movement to say everything is political.

“Politics is the activity by which the framework of human life is sustained; it is not life itself.”

I find myself losing focus at times with some of Minogue's meandering thoughts but then suddenly I'll be struck with a truly stunning sentence or a crystal clear observation.

“Europeans have sometimes been beguiled by a despotism that comes concealed in the seductive form of an ideal – as it did in the cases of Hitler and Stalin. This fact may remind us that the possibility of despotism is remote neither in space nor in time.”

or

Greek political science studied constitutions and generalised the relation between human nature and political associations. Perhaps its most powerful instrument was the theory of recurrent cycles. Monarchies tend to degenerate into tyranny, tyrannies are overthrown by aristocracies, which degenerate into oligarchies exploiting the population, which are overthrown by democracies, which in turn degenerate into the intolerable instability of mob rule, whereupon some powerful leader establishes himself as a monarch and the cycle begins all over again. This is the version of political science we find influentially expounded by a later Greek called Polybius whose main concern was to explain the character of Roman politics to his fellow Greeks; other versions of a political cycle are to be found in Plato and Aristotle.

or

The policy of Rome, like that of the Greeks, issued not from some supposedly supreme wisdom but from a freely recognised competition between interests and arguments within a society. Western politics is distinguished from other forms of social order by its exploration of this theme: that beyond the harmony, in which conflict is resolved by the free discussion and free acceptance of whatever outcome emerges from constitutional procedure.

or

Europe as we know it is the outcome of successive waves of migration by tribes pushed westwards by the pressure of others behind them. They were attracted by the evident prosperity and civilisation of the Roman empire. Travelling in great hordes, the wandering peoples whom we know from the names the Romans gave them - Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Angles, Franks, and so on - pushed into the empire over many centuries, at first being absorbed by the Roman structure but later disrupting and destroying it. These barbarians set up kingdoms of their own in the countryside and in time were converted to Christianity. Each realm had a king and a set of magnates who were generally granted land in return for allegiance. Temporary grants of land soon became hereditary, but it took centuries for the old stability of the Roman era to return, partly because of internal quarrels and partly because of the pressure of new wanderers in search of land and security. The Anglo-Saxons, for example, conquered England only to find themselves attacked by the Danes, and then the Normans. These Normans themselves originated in a set of Viking raiders who in the ninth century had carved out a province in the kingdom of the Franks, and went on to create another empire in Sicily. In these troubled times, the only security came from the protection by a class of professional warriors. And protection came at a price.

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here's a quote from Kenneth Minoque's book:

[P:]olitics in the modern world has
generally been the activity of dealing with the business of a civil association, the state, which provided the formal framework within which individuals could produce and consume, associate socially with each other, worship or not worship, and express themselves in art. Politics was strictly defined by its limits, and the limit was what was necessary for this complex civilization to work.

This is a pretty nice, astute quotation, but he hints in the first portion of the work and states explicitly in the latter that this conception has mostly fallen away. He thinks this is so, because people now use the world 'politics' or 'political' freely to mean just about any social phenomenon. Another reason he thinks politics as a concept is being redefined has to do with the growing influence of social issues becoming part of public policy, and hence political. He is surely correct that usage of the words 'politics' and 'political' have become so broad as to be meaningless. However, he's incorrect to assume that more social issues becoming public policies makes the understanding of politics as a framework in which to allow people to live their lives with little mandate as to how people ought to live their lives less relevant. This is because those social issues that become public policy are largely just debates and issues that fulminate from lower levels. The only way in which these issues are enforced from the top down is when a political demagogue will take it upon herself to pander to her constituents and convince them that a non-issue is actually an issue. But what more likely happens is that demagogues distort issues and make fine dissimilarities seem huge chasms and then legislate from there. Surely either of these two situations is unjust. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the problem lies in public policy issues per se; rather, the problem lies in the misuse of public policy by unscrupulous politicians. Minogue seems to be attacking the wrong problem here.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will surely produce a highly polarized response as late Australian conservative Kenneth Minogue’s politics would have been highly polarizing in his studies. Minogue essentially traces the Anglo-European understanding of politics as a development from classical traditions. It should be read with that bias in mine: it is Eurocentric, but erudite. Minogue makes good points about the “anti-political” nature of both “ideology” and “despotism” but he also special pleads and “No True Scotsman” to do so. Still, most of these Oxford introductions could be what Hobbes said about humans under the state of nature, “nasty, brutish, and short”—or at least, “idiosyncratic, brooding, and short”—and Minogue manages to be engaging and give a fairly historiographic accounting of what he sees as development of the ideas of European politics. I suspect, however, that most people who disagree with Minogue’s focus on the state or his somewhat specific limitations on “despotism” and “ideology” will quickly disagree with his axioms so that they see the virtues of his accounting. I, personally, do not think so a clear limit can be made between politics as deliberation and politics as the legitimatizing and limiting on violence. Indeed, Minogue’s endorse of Hobbes further complicates this. Lastly. his inability to discuss politics outside of the Greco-Roman and Europe/Anglo Commonwealth and the States perspective really limits the scope of the book in a way that undercuts some of his key points.