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The Little Book of Politics
Packed with infographics and flowcharts that explain complex concepts in a simple but exciting way, this book is the perfect pocket-sized introduction to politics and political thought.
From the origins of democracy to Machiavelli's cunning statecraft, Rousseau's "social contract" to the American Declaration of Independence, Marxist communism, the dawn of populism, and identity politics, The Little Book of Politics examines the philosophies behind the different political beliefs and methods of government used around the world over the course of human history.
One of a series of new, compact sister titles to DK's "Big Ideas" series, The Little Book of Politics offers you the same combination of clear text and hard-working infographics in a portable format that is perfect for reading on the go.
From the origins of democracy to Machiavelli's cunning statecraft, Rousseau's "social contract" to the American Declaration of Independence, Marxist communism, the dawn of populism, and identity politics, The Little Book of Politics examines the philosophies behind the different political beliefs and methods of government used around the world over the course of human history.
One of a series of new, compact sister titles to DK's "Big Ideas" series, The Little Book of Politics offers you the same combination of clear text and hard-working infographics in a portable format that is perfect for reading on the go.
208 pages, Paperback
Published May 7, 2020
95 people are currently reading
324 people want to read
About the author
D.K. Publishing
9,126 books2,068 followersDorling Kindersley (DK) is a British multinational publishing company specializing in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 62 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a consumer publishing company jointly owned by Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA and Pearson PLC. Bertelsmann owns 53% of the company and Pearson owns 47%.
Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.
Source: Wikipedia.
Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.
Source: Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 6, 2025
2.2/5
Just finished this a mere minute ago after BATTLING to get through this book for the past month. I read the book very attentively and plan on going back to some of the philosophers' ideas and writings quoted/discussed. I actively sought this book as a way to brush up my knowledge of different political ideas, inspired by a moment where I realized I was discussing socialism with someone without understanding what it was at a level beyond superficial (something I suspect many left-leaning people fall victim to, and I count myself among them). But very soon after starting it I was waiting for it to end just so I could write this review. I admit I have been a vocal skeptic of (political) philosophers and their supposed ascendency to a higher plane of understanding that warrants worship of their viewpoints, especially given how intrinsically unscientific and untested their claims are. But I wanted to tackle my prejudice head on.
Let’s start with some statistics. There are 57 philosophers discussed in the book. Of them:
- 14/57 are not explicitly white (AKA not from Europe or of European origin in North America. I decided to include Simon Bolivar here even though he is completely of Spanish origin; I’ve also decided to include Augustine of Hippo since he is thought to be Berber!)
- 12/57 are from places outside of the West (sorry MLK I have to exclude you from this one. Also any non-European parts of the Roman empire doesn’t count)
- 4/57 are women
When I bought this book, I was not signing up to read “The Little Book of Western Politics”. I even glanced through the first couple pages as a check, and when I saw Confucious and Sun Tzu as the first two segments, my worries were assuaged. Apparently erroneously so! The lack of international voices here, in a book purportedly summarizing prominent and important political philosophies around the world and throughout history, implies that non-Western people were simply not philosophizing to the same degree that Westerners were, or they were but their thinking was so rudimentary or so far behind that it didn’t warrant inclusion and wasn’t significant or impactful. It places the West as the center of the world, and anything else was just someone on the outside looking in. Even for most of the non-Western thinkers, the focus of their philosophies were the interactions between them and Western powers. I can excuse that given the profound and deep-rooted impact colonialism and racism had on non-Western countries, though. But the general lack of non-Western and non-white voices is egregious. I mean, come on: in your segment on abolition, you picked Abraham Lincoln as your guy? As if he was the mastermind behind the idea of abolition? They would have done better to pick one of the many Black activists, speakers, and writers advocating for abolition. Another example of this that annoyed me was that in the chapter introduction for “Postwar Politics”, it specifically touches on the Arab Spring as a major global political change. But did we get a single Arab thinker discussing the Arab Spring or the Arab dictatorships of the era? Of course not. But thank God I got a 6 page discussion of the Rawls vs. Nezick rivalry.
I also have a personal gripe with the section on Prophet Muhammad, which also became the de facto Islam section (“section” is being generous – it’s two pages. Compare that to the multiple Christianity-minded political philosophers we are taught about. And now we’re back to the issues presented in the previous paragraph). For full disclosure, I am a Muslim woman, though I wouldn’t call myself extremely religious. Reading this page as the sole representation for Islam and the massive effect it’s had on the politics of the world really disappointed me. The whole section was just a long-winded discussion about “jihad” and how the origins of the religion, its founder, and its very tenants all strongly encourage combat and violence at the drop of a hat. Hardly any other politics were mentioned. Nothing about the abolition of slavery (in theory), about equality among all races, nothing. Only jihad. What sort of impression is that supposed to make to non-Muslims! In the other discussions of “just war” from a Christian perspective, it never attributes the more harsh/brutal end conclusions to the religion itself, but rather that interpreters of Christianity. Islam is given no such benefit. No, it is Prophet Muhammad himself who is basically a warmonger – who called to “attack the unbelievers” and “taking preemptive action”. I mean, the emblem they designed for the section is a white dove with a tank within it – representing how Islam may preach peace superficially, but at its core is all about violence. I had to stop and write down my feelings on the page to take note of how uncomfortable I was. It basically gave a step-by-step instruction as to why Islamic terrorists are actually interpreting the religion correctly. Blegh.
Now my concerns with the writing itself. I felt that it often shied away from defining more complex terms that they use freely. Like I said before, I read this book to get clear, simple definitions for socialism and communism (in a practical sense rather than just an economic standpoint, which is why I chose this politics book instead of the economics one) – but they never defined it. The first mention of socialism I recall is when they discussed Tocqueville’s plea for a French “rejection of socialism”. There is no explanation beforehand. For all of the communist thinkers, yes they espoused communism, or Marxism, or socialism, but the book never actually explained how these political/economic plans would actually work. Sure, yes, it calls for “the abolition of class”, and “the masses owning the means of production”, but what does that even mean? Throwing out these ideas with no explanation is vague and wishy-washy. I had to look up what “private property” entailed because I had no idea if it meant factories, or apartments, or toothbrushes. But boy did they sure love talking about private property.
One thing I enjoyed was the range of viewpoints; I can see that the contributors tried to stay politically neutral which I anticipated and appreciated. For example, although I disagree with Libertarian politics, I enjoyed reading the segment on Nozick and think it’s important to learn about the reasoning behind that perspective.
The last thing I want to mention is a pattern I recognized while reading the book – almost all of the thinkers here come from a place of massive privilege. They come from rich families, or were rich enough to be very well educated, or came from families already in politics, or spurned the life of aristocracy, or something like that. Obviously this is very understandable (especially before literacy was a more common trait among non-wealthy people) but it is still disheartening. Our thoughts about the world and how best to run it have been guided by the very people that have benefitted by inequality and who don’t have lived experience of the hardships they are trying to solve. It’s a shame. The rich are the ones that have the time and education to write long existentialist books about life and humanity in a theoretical sense.
But anyways I bought this book at Powell's in Portland, go support your local independent bookstores or local libraries! :)
Just finished this a mere minute ago after BATTLING to get through this book for the past month. I read the book very attentively and plan on going back to some of the philosophers' ideas and writings quoted/discussed. I actively sought this book as a way to brush up my knowledge of different political ideas, inspired by a moment where I realized I was discussing socialism with someone without understanding what it was at a level beyond superficial (something I suspect many left-leaning people fall victim to, and I count myself among them). But very soon after starting it I was waiting for it to end just so I could write this review. I admit I have been a vocal skeptic of (political) philosophers and their supposed ascendency to a higher plane of understanding that warrants worship of their viewpoints, especially given how intrinsically unscientific and untested their claims are. But I wanted to tackle my prejudice head on.
Let’s start with some statistics. There are 57 philosophers discussed in the book. Of them:
- 14/57 are not explicitly white (AKA not from Europe or of European origin in North America. I decided to include Simon Bolivar here even though he is completely of Spanish origin; I’ve also decided to include Augustine of Hippo since he is thought to be Berber!)
- 12/57 are from places outside of the West (sorry MLK I have to exclude you from this one. Also any non-European parts of the Roman empire doesn’t count)
- 4/57 are women
When I bought this book, I was not signing up to read “The Little Book of Western Politics”. I even glanced through the first couple pages as a check, and when I saw Confucious and Sun Tzu as the first two segments, my worries were assuaged. Apparently erroneously so! The lack of international voices here, in a book purportedly summarizing prominent and important political philosophies around the world and throughout history, implies that non-Western people were simply not philosophizing to the same degree that Westerners were, or they were but their thinking was so rudimentary or so far behind that it didn’t warrant inclusion and wasn’t significant or impactful. It places the West as the center of the world, and anything else was just someone on the outside looking in. Even for most of the non-Western thinkers, the focus of their philosophies were the interactions between them and Western powers. I can excuse that given the profound and deep-rooted impact colonialism and racism had on non-Western countries, though. But the general lack of non-Western and non-white voices is egregious. I mean, come on: in your segment on abolition, you picked Abraham Lincoln as your guy? As if he was the mastermind behind the idea of abolition? They would have done better to pick one of the many Black activists, speakers, and writers advocating for abolition. Another example of this that annoyed me was that in the chapter introduction for “Postwar Politics”, it specifically touches on the Arab Spring as a major global political change. But did we get a single Arab thinker discussing the Arab Spring or the Arab dictatorships of the era? Of course not. But thank God I got a 6 page discussion of the Rawls vs. Nezick rivalry.
I also have a personal gripe with the section on Prophet Muhammad, which also became the de facto Islam section (“section” is being generous – it’s two pages. Compare that to the multiple Christianity-minded political philosophers we are taught about. And now we’re back to the issues presented in the previous paragraph). For full disclosure, I am a Muslim woman, though I wouldn’t call myself extremely religious. Reading this page as the sole representation for Islam and the massive effect it’s had on the politics of the world really disappointed me. The whole section was just a long-winded discussion about “jihad” and how the origins of the religion, its founder, and its very tenants all strongly encourage combat and violence at the drop of a hat. Hardly any other politics were mentioned. Nothing about the abolition of slavery (in theory), about equality among all races, nothing. Only jihad. What sort of impression is that supposed to make to non-Muslims! In the other discussions of “just war” from a Christian perspective, it never attributes the more harsh/brutal end conclusions to the religion itself, but rather that interpreters of Christianity. Islam is given no such benefit. No, it is Prophet Muhammad himself who is basically a warmonger – who called to “attack the unbelievers” and “taking preemptive action”. I mean, the emblem they designed for the section is a white dove with a tank within it – representing how Islam may preach peace superficially, but at its core is all about violence. I had to stop and write down my feelings on the page to take note of how uncomfortable I was. It basically gave a step-by-step instruction as to why Islamic terrorists are actually interpreting the religion correctly. Blegh.
Now my concerns with the writing itself. I felt that it often shied away from defining more complex terms that they use freely. Like I said before, I read this book to get clear, simple definitions for socialism and communism (in a practical sense rather than just an economic standpoint, which is why I chose this politics book instead of the economics one) – but they never defined it. The first mention of socialism I recall is when they discussed Tocqueville’s plea for a French “rejection of socialism”. There is no explanation beforehand. For all of the communist thinkers, yes they espoused communism, or Marxism, or socialism, but the book never actually explained how these political/economic plans would actually work. Sure, yes, it calls for “the abolition of class”, and “the masses owning the means of production”, but what does that even mean? Throwing out these ideas with no explanation is vague and wishy-washy. I had to look up what “private property” entailed because I had no idea if it meant factories, or apartments, or toothbrushes. But boy did they sure love talking about private property.
One thing I enjoyed was the range of viewpoints; I can see that the contributors tried to stay politically neutral which I anticipated and appreciated. For example, although I disagree with Libertarian politics, I enjoyed reading the segment on Nozick and think it’s important to learn about the reasoning behind that perspective.
The last thing I want to mention is a pattern I recognized while reading the book – almost all of the thinkers here come from a place of massive privilege. They come from rich families, or were rich enough to be very well educated, or came from families already in politics, or spurned the life of aristocracy, or something like that. Obviously this is very understandable (especially before literacy was a more common trait among non-wealthy people) but it is still disheartening. Our thoughts about the world and how best to run it have been guided by the very people that have benefitted by inequality and who don’t have lived experience of the hardships they are trying to solve. It’s a shame. The rich are the ones that have the time and education to write long existentialist books about life and humanity in a theoretical sense.
But anyways I bought this book at Powell's in Portland, go support your local independent bookstores or local libraries! :)
February 13, 2022
A very nice compilation of the most important political profiles, social movements and political theory around the world that influenced society as we know it today.
A must to get some context about politics.
A must to get some context about politics.
April 1, 2023
It's really fun for someone who's new into politics. A quick guide (as comprehensive as it can get for a small book) into politics! Loved it.
January 2, 2024
Great little introductory book
July 25, 2024
A good book to get started on basic political theories. I read this book to get a better understanding of different political views and perspectives. I would say it’s helpful however, too brief that it didn’t make it that enjoyable. I would have preferred a bit of a lengthier discussion or information, to keep me more interested or attached.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews