The Political Science Books Top 100

1. The Republic By Plato | Under $1.00 The central work of one of the West's greatest philosophers, The Republic of Plato is a masterpiece of insight and feeling, the finest of the Socratic dialogues, and one of the great books of Western culture. This new translation captures the dramatic realism, ... More »

2. On Liberty By John Stuart Mill | Used Price: 90% Off John Stuart Mill is one of the few indisputably classic authors in the history of political thought. On Liberty, first published in 1851, has become celebrated as the most powerful defense of the freedom of the individual and it is now widely regarded as the most ... More »

3. A Theory of Justice By John Rawls A Theory of Justice is a work of political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls. It was originally published in 1971 and revised in both 1975 (for the translated editions) and 1999. In A ... More »

4. The Human Condition By Hannah Arendt | Used Price: 70% Off A work of striking originality bursting with unexpected insights, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it ... More »

5. Anarchy, State, and Utopia By Robert Nozick Translated into 100 languages, winner of the National Book Award, and named one of the 100 Most Influential Books since World War II by the Times Literary Supplement, Anarchy, State and Utopia remains one of the most theoretically trenchant and philosophically rich defenses of economic liberalism to date, ... More »

6. Law's Empire By Ronald Dworkin | Used Price: 60% Off With the incisiveness and lucid style for which he is renowned, Ronald Dworkin has written a masterful explanation of how the Anglo-American legal system works and on what principles it is grounded. Lawâ€™s Empire is a full-length presentation of his theory of law that will be studied and ... More »

7. Democracy And Education By John Dewey | Used Price: 50% Off John Dewey's best-known and still-popular classic, Democracy and Education, is presented here as a new edition in Volume 9 of the Middle Works. Sidney Hook, who wrote the introduction to this volume, describes Democracy and Education: It illuminates directly or indirectly all the basic issues that are central ... More »

8. Man, the State, and War By Kenneth N. Waltz | Used Price: 60% Off What are the causes of war? To answer this question, Professor Waltz examines the ideas of major thinkers throughout the history of Western civilization. He explores works both by classic political philosophers, such as St. Augustine, Hobbes, Kant, and Rousseau, and by modern psychologists and anthropologists to discover ... More »

9. Democracy in America By Alexis de Tocqueville | 80% Off Â Democracy in America has had the singular honor of being even to this day the work that polit?ical commentators of every stripe refer to when they seek to draw large conclusions about the soci?ety of the United States. Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, came to the ... More »

11. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age By Larry M. Bartels | Used Price: 70% Off Using a vast swath of data spanning the past six decades, Unequal Democracy debunks many myths about politics in contemporary America, using the widening gap between the rich and the poor to shed disturbing light on the workings of American democracy. Larry Bartels shows ... More »

12. The Rational Public By Benjamin I. Page; Robert Y. Shapiro This monumental study is a comprehensive critical survey of the policy preferences of the American public, and will be the definitive work on American public opinion for some time to come. Drawing on an enormous body of public opinion data, Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro provide ... More »

13. Discourses on Livy By Niccolo Machiavelli | Used Price: 70% Off Discourses on Livy, written in 1531, is as essential to an understanding of Machiavelli as his famous treatise, The Prince. Equally controversial, it reveals his fundamental preference for a republican state. Comparing the practice of the ancient Romans with that of his contemporaries provided Machiavelli ... More »

14. An Economic Theory of Democracy By Anthony Downs | Used Price: 70% Off An Economic Theory of Democracy is a political science treatise written by Anthony Downs, published in 1957. The book set forth a model with precise conditions under which economic theory could be ... More »

15. Imagined Communities By Benedict Anderson | Used Price: 60% Off Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism is the most read book on nationalism. It's a historical, political and sociological analysis of nations which are really imagined communities or socially constructed communities. More »

16. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media By Noam Chomsky; Edward S. Herman | 60% Off In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, ... More »

17. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations By Gabriel Abraham Almond; Sidney Verba This classic text is a comparative political study, based on extensive survey data that defined and analysed the Greek concept of civic virtuelture: the political and social attitudes that are crucial to the success of modern democracy in Western nations. Cited extensively, the book was origionall published in ... More »

18. Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City By Robert Dahl | Used Price: 60% Off In this now-classic work, one of the most celebrated political scientists of the twentieth century offers a powerful interpretation of the location of political power in American urban communities. For this new edition, Robert A. Dahl has written a new Preface in which he reflects on Who Governs? ... More »

19. Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed By James Scott In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. He argues that centrally managed social plans derail when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not -- and cannot be -- ... More »

20. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy By William Appleman Williams | 70% Off â€œA brilliant book on foreign affairs.â€Ââ€”Adolf A. Berle Jr., New York Times Book Review This incisive interpretation of American foreign policy ranks as a classic in American thought. First published in 1959, the book offered an analysis of the wellsprings of American foreign policy that shed light on ... More »

21. Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems By Thomas Ferguson | Used Price: 50% Off "To discover who rules, follow the gold." This is the argument of Golden Rule, a provocative, pungent history of modern American politics. Although the role big money plays in defining political outcomes has long been obvious to ordinary Americans, most pundits and scholars have virtually dismissed this assumption. ... More »

22. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy By Martin Gilens | Used Price: 70% Off Tackling one of the most volatile issues in contemporary politics, Martin Gilens's work punctures myths and misconceptions about welfare policy, public opinion, and the role of the media in both. Why Americans Hate Welfare shows that the public's views on welfare are a complex mixture of cynicism and ... More »

23. Multiculturalism By Charles Taylor; Jurgen Habermas | 90% Off A new edition of the highly acclaimed book Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition," this paperback brings together an even wider range of leading philosophers and social scientists to probe the political controversy surrounding multiculturalism. Charles Taylor's initial inquiry, which considers whether the institutions ... More »

24. Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy By Michael J. Sandel | Used Price: 70% Off The defect, Sandel maintains, lies in the impoverished vision of citizenship and community shared by Democrats and Republicans alike. American politics has lost its civic voice, leaving both liberals and conservatives unable to inspire the sense of community and civic engagement that self-government requires. In ... More »

25. Coercion, Capital and European States: AD 990 - 1992 By Charles Tilly | Used Price: 60% Off Coercion, Capital and European States: AD 990 - 1992 is Charles Tilly's magisterial account of European state formation. Looking at the varies systems of power that existed across Europe, Tilly explains how the nation state came to dominate and why it was by no-means inevitable. Towards the end of ... More »

26. Discourse on Inequality By Jean-Jacques Rousseau One of the most respected translations of this key work of 18th-century philosophy, this text includes a brief introduction to the two works as well as abundant notes that range from simple explanations to speculative interpretations. More »

27. Weber: Political Writings By Max Weber | Used Price: 70% Off Max Weber (1864-1920), generally known as a founder of modern social science, was concerned with political affairs throughout his life. The texts in this edition span his career and illustrate the development of his political thinking on the fate of Germany and the nature of politics in the ... More »

28. The Limits of State Action By Wilhelm von Humboldt; J. W. Burrow | 50% Off This text is important both as one of the most interesting contributions to the liberalism of the German Enlightenment, and as the most significant source for the ideas which John Stuart Mill popularized in his essay On Liberty. Humboldt's concern is to define the criteria by which the ... More »

29. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics By John J. Mearsheimer | Used Price: 80% Off "A superb book....Mearsheimer has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the behavior of great powers."â€”The National Interest, Barry R. Posen A decade after the cold war ended, policy makers and academics foresaw a new era of peace and prosperity, an era in which democracy and open ... More »

30. Karl Marx's Theory of History By G. A. Cohen | Used Price: 50% Off First published in 1978, this book rapidly established itself as a classic of modern Marxism. Cohen's masterful application of advanced philosophical techniques in an uncompromising defense of historical materialism commanded widespread admiration. In the ensuing twenty years, the book has served as a flagship ... More »

31. A History of Political Theory By George H. Sabine A book which has been a widely recognised classic in its field, it acknowledges the fundamental importance to politics and political understanding of cultural tradition and intellectual history. Revisions include a new first chapter which attempts to put the history of political theory in a context both of ... More »

32. The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom By Nancy J. Hirschmann This book reconsiders the dominant Western understandings of freedom through the lens of women's real-life experiences of domestic violence, welfare, and Islamic veiling. Nancy Hirschmann argues that the typical approach to freedom found in political philosophy severely reduces the concept's complexity, which is more ... More »

33. After Hegemony By Robert O. Keohane | Used Price: 60% Off This book is a comprehensive study of cooperation among the advanced capitalist countries. Can cooperation persist without the dominance of a single power, such as the United States after World War II? To answer this pressing question, Robert Keohane analyzes the institutions, or "international ... More »

34. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction By Immanuel Wallerstein | 60% Off In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered thirty years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social ... More »

35. Lawless World By Philippe Sands Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules is a book by the British attorney and author, Philippe Sands. It was published by Viking Adult in October 2005. Sands is a professor of international law at University College London. Among other issues, the book discusses the ... More »

36. The Authority of Law By Joseph Raz This classic collection of essays, first published in 1979, has had an enduring influence on philosophical work on the nature of law and its relation to morality. Raz begins by presenting an analysis of the concept of authority and what is involved in law's claim to moral authority. ... More »

37. One-Dimensional Man By Herbert Marcuse | Used Price: 70% Off Originally published in 1964, One-Dimensional Man quickly became one of the most important texts in the ensuing decade of radical political change. This second edition, newly introduced by Marcuse scholar Douglas Kellner, presents Marcuse's best-selling work to another generation of readers in the context of contemporary events. More »

38. A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy By Jonathan I. Israel Democracy, free thought and expression, religious tolerance, individual liberty, political self-determination of peoples, sexual and racial equality--these values have firmly entered the mainstream in the decades since they were enshrined in the 1948 U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. But if these ideals no longer ... More »

39. Politics Among Nations By Hans Morgenthau Hans Morgenthau's classic text established realism as the fundamental way of thinking about international relations. Although it has had its critics, the fact that it continues to be the most long lived text for courses in international relations attests to its enduring value. Someone ... More »

40. The American Voter By Angus Campbell; Philip Converse; Warren Miller Here is the unabridged version of the classic theoretical study of voting behavior, originally published in 1960. It is a standard reference in the field of electoral research, presenting formulations of the theoretical issues that have been the focus of scholarly publication. No single study matches the study ... More »

41. Failed Statebuilding: Intervention, the State, and the Dynamics of Peace Formation By Oliver P. Richmond | Used Price: 80% Off Western struggles-and failures-to create functioning states in countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan have inspired questions about whether statebuilding projects are at all viable, or whether they make the lives of their intended beneficiaries better or worse. In this groundbreaking book, Oliver Richmond asks why statebuilding has been ... More »

42. The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century By Sheri Berman | Used Price: 60% Off Political history in the industrial world has indeed ended, argues this pioneering study, but the winner has been social democracy - an ideology and political movement that has been as influential as it has been misunderstood. Berman looks at the history of social democracy from its origins in ... More »

43. The Anatomy of Fascism By Robert O. Paxton | Used Price: 60% Off What is fascism? By focusing on the concrete: what the fascists did, rather than what they said, the esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question.From the first violent uniformed bands beating up "enemies of the state," through Mussolini's rise to power, to Germany's fascist radicalization in World ... More »

45. Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule By Josiah Ober | Used Price: 50% Off How and why did the Western tradition of political theorizing arise in Athens during the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C.? By interweaving intellectual history with political philosophy and literary analysis, Josiah Ober argues that the tradition originated in a high-stakes debate about democracy. ... More »

46. Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War By Robert A. Pape | Used Price: 60% Off From Iraq to Bosnia to North Korea, the first question in American foreign policy debates is increasingly: Can air power alone do the job? Robert A. Pape provides a systematic answer. Analyzing the results of over thirty air campaigns, including a detailed reconstruction of the Gulf War, he ... More »

47. Nations and Nationalism By Ernest Gellner | Used Price: 50% Off From reviews of the first edition: "Brilliant, provocative . . . a great book."â€”New Statesman "An important book . . . It is a new starting line from which all subsequent discussions of nationalism will have to begin."â€”New Society "A better explanation than anyone has yet offered of ... More »

49. Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society By Nicholas Wheeler | Used Price: 80% Off The extent to which humanitarian intervention has become a legitimate practice in post-cold war international society is the subject of this book. It maps the changing legitimacy of humanitarian intervention by comparing the international response to cases of humanitarian intervention in the cold war and post-cold war periods. ... More »

50. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion By John Zaller | Used Price: 50% Off In this book John Zaller develops a comprehensive theory to explain how people acquire political information from the mass media and convert it into political preferences. Using numerous specific examples, Zaller applies this theory in order to explain the dynamics of public opinion on a broad range ... More »

51. Strong Democracy By Benjamin Barber | Used Price: 70% Off Since its appearance twenty years ago, Benjamin R. Barber's Strong Democracy has been one of the primary standards against which political science thinking and writing is measured. Defined as the participation of all of the people in at least some aspects of self-government at least some of the ... More »

53. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries By Arend Lijphart | Used Price: 50% Off In this updated and expanded edition of his classic text, Arend Lijphart offers a broader and deeper analysis of worldwide democratic institutions than ever before. Examining thirty-six democracies during the period from 1945 to 2010, Lijphart arrives at importantâ€”and unexpectedâ€”conclusions about what type of democracy works best.Praise for ... More »

54. Power: A Radical View By Steven Lukes | Used Price: 50% Off Steven Lukes' Power: A Radical View is a seminal work still widely used some 30 years after publication. The second edition includes the complete original text alongside two major new essays. One assesses the main debates about how to conceptualize and study power, including the influential contributions of ... More »

55. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy By Barrington Moore | Used Price: 70% Off A landmark in comparative history and a challenge to scholars of all lands who are trying to learn how we arrived at where we are now.Â -New York Times Book Review More »

56. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy By Robert D. Putnam | Used Price: 90% Off Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? In a book that has received attention from policymakers and civic activists in America and around the world, Robert Putnam and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful ... More »

57. The Federalist By Alexander Hamilton; James Madison; John Jay The Federalist represents one side of one of the most momentous political debates ever conducted: whether to ratify, or to reject, the newly drafted American constitution. This authoritative new edition presents complete texts for all of the eighty-five Federalist papers, along with the sixteen letters of "Brutus", the ... More »

58. Essays on Political Morality By R. M. Hare | Used Price: 70% Off These essays represent Hare's thinking on a range of contemporary issues in political morality, including political obligation, terrorism, morality and war, rights, quality, and the environment. Three of the essays are previously unpublished. More »

59. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics By Hedley Bull | Used Price: 50% Off In this fundamental text, Hedley Bull explores three key questions: What is the nature of order in world politics? How is it maintained within the contemporary states system? And do desirable and feasible alternatives to the states system exist? Contrary to common claims, Bull asserts that the sovereign ... More »

60. The Rule of Law By Tom Bingham | Used Price: 60% Off "The Rule of Law" is a phrase much used but little examined. The idea of the rule of law as the foundation of modern states and civilizations has recently become even more talismanic than that of democracy, but what does it actually consist of? In this brilliant short ... More »

61. Think Tanks in America By Thomas Medvetz Over the past half-century, think tanks have become fixtures of American politics, supplying advice to presidents and policymakers, expert testimony on Capitol Hill, and convenient facts and figures to journalists and media specialists. But what are think tanks? Who funds them? What kind of ... More »

62. Second Treatise of Government By John Locke; C. B. Macpherson | Price: $0.01 The Second Treatise is one of the most important political treatises ever written and one of the most far-reaching in its influence.In his provocative 15-page introduction to this edition, the late eminent political theorist C. B. Macpherson examines Locke's arguments for limited, conditional government, private property, and right ... More »

63. Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty By Isaiah Berlin | Used Price: 60% Off Liberty is a revised and expanded edition of the book that Isaiah Berlin regarded as his most important-Four Essays on Liberty, a standard text of liberalism, constantly in demand and constantly discussed since it was first published in 1969. Writing in Harper's, Irving Howe described it as "an ... More »

64. Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations By E. H. Carr | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 E. H. Carr's classic work on international relations published in 1939 was immediately recognized by friend and foe alike as a defining work. The author was one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals of the 20th century. The issues and themes he developed continue to have relevance ... More »

65. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors By Hendrik Spruyt | Used Price: 70% Off The present international system, composed for the most part of sovereign, territorial states, is often viewed as the inevitable outcome of historical development. Hendrik Spruyt argues that there was nothing inevitable about the rise of the state system, however. Examining the competing institutions that ... More »

66. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights By Will Kymlicka | Under $1.00 The increasingly multicultural fabric of modern societies has given rise to many new issues and conflicts, as ethnic and national minorities demand recognition and support for their cultural identity. This book presents a new conception of the rights and status of minority cultures. It argues that certain "collective ... More »

67. Fear: The History of a Political Idea By Corey Robin | Used Price: 80% Off For many commentators, September 11 inaugurated a new era of fear. But as Corey Robin shows in his unsettling tour of the Western imagination--the first intellectual history of its kind--fear has shaped our politics and culture since time immemorial. From the Garden ... More »

68. The Modern Corporation and American Political Thought: Law, Power, and Ideology By Scott Bowman | Used Price: 90% Off Despite all that has been written about business and its role in American life, contemporary theories about the modern corporation as a social and political institution have failed to explain adequately the pervasiveness and complexity of corporate power in the twentieth century. Through an analysis of history, law, ... More »

69. Philosophy and Real Politics By Raymond Geuss Many contemporary political thinkers are gripped by the belief that their task is to develop an ideal theory of rights or justice for guiding and judging political actions. But in Philosophy and Real Politics, Raymond Geuss argues that philosophers should first try to understand ... More »

70. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government By Philip Pettit This is the first full-length presentation of a republican alternative to the liberal and communitarian theories that have dominated political philosophy in recent years. The latest addition to the acclaimed Oxford Political Theory series, Pettit's eloquent and compelling account opens with an examination of the traditional republican conception ... More »

71. On War By Carl von Clausewitz | Used Price: 60% Off On War is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832, it has been read throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of soldiers, statesmen, and intellectuals. More »

72. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic By Chalmers Johnson | Rock-bottom Price: $0.01 "Impressive . . . a powerful indictment of U.S. military and foreign policy." -Los Angeles Times Book Review, front page In the years after the Soviet Union imploded, the United States was described first as the globe's "lone superpower," then as a "reluctant sheriff," next as the "indispensable ... More »

73. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke By C. B. Macpherson This seminal work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson was first published by the Clarendon Press in 1962, and remains of key importance to the study of liberal-democratic theory half-a-century later. In it, Macpherson argues that the chief difficulty of the notion of individualism that underpins classical liberalism lies ... More »

74. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman By Mary Wollstonecraft | Used Price: 70% Off This volume brings together the major political writings of Mary Wollstonecraft in the order in which they appeared in the revolutionary 1790s. It traces her passionate and indignant response to the excitement of the early days of the French Revolution and then her uneasiness at its later bloody ... More »

75. The Political Economy of European Welfare Capitalism By Daniel Wincott; Colin Hay | 50% Off A state-of-the-art assessment of welfare provision, policy and reform at national and at EU level which spans the whole of Europe - East, West and Central. Uniquely broad-ranging in scope, and covering the latest research findings and theoretical debates, it provides a genuinely comparative overview text for students ... More »

76. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume 1, The Renaissance By Quentin Skinner | Used Price: 60% Off A two-volume study of political thought from the late thirteenth to the end of the sixteenth century, the decisive period of transition from medieval to modern political theory. The work is intended to be both an introduction to the period for students, and a presentation and justification of ... More »

77. The Open Society and Its Enemies By Karl Popper Â â€˜If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not, I hope, to belittle them. It springs rather from my conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of ... More »

78. Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents By Richard E. Neustadt | Under $1.00 Thirty years ago Richard Neustadt published "Presidential Power", which became a widely studied book on the theory and practice of presidential leadership. Presidents themselves read it and assign it to their staff for study, as did the intructors of hundreds of thousands of students of government. Now Richard ... More »

79. Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America By Miguel Angel Centeno What role does war play in political development? Our understanding of the rise of the nation-state is based heavily on the Western European experience of war. Challenging the dominance of this model, Blood and Debt looks at Latin America's much different experience as more relevant to politics today ... More »

80. No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State By Glenn Greenwald | Used Price: 60% Off In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his ... More »

81. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism By Sheldon S. Wolin Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost clichÃ©. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, ... More »

83. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy By Susan Strange | Used Price: 90% Off Who is really in charge of the world economy? Not only governments, argues Susan Strange in The Retreat of the State. Big businesses, drug barons, insurers, accountants and international bureaucrats all encroach on the so-called sovereignty of the state. Professor Strange examines the implications of this rivalry and ... More »

85. Authority and the Individual By Bertrand Russell From Ancient Greek philosophy to the French Revolution to the modern welfare state, in Authority and the Individual Bertrand Russell tackles the perennial questions about the balance between authority and human freedom. With characteristic clarity and deep understanding, he explores the formation and purpose of society, education, moral ... More »

86. The Power Elite By C. Wright Mills | Used Price: 70% Off First published in 1956, The Power Elite stands as a contemporary classic of social science and social criticism. C. Wright Mills examines and critiques the organization of power in the United States, calling attention to three firmly interlocked prongs of power: the military, corporate, and political elite. The ... More »

87. Rights of Man By Thomas Paine | Used Price: 60% Off Thomas Paine was the first international revolutionary. His Common Sense (1776) was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution--and his Rights of Man (1791-2), the most famous defense of the French Revolution, sent out a clarion call for revolution throughout the world. Paine paid the price ... More »

88. Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa By Daniel N. Posner | Used Price: 70% Off Presenting a theory to explain how politics revolves around one axis of social cleavage instead of another, Daniel Posner examines Zambia, where people identify themselves either as members of one of the country's seventy-three tribes or as members of one of its four principal language groups. Drawing ... More »

90. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy By John J. Mearsheimer; Stephen Walt | 70% Off The Israel Lobby," by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, was one of the most controversial articles in recent memory. Originally published in the London Review of Books in March 2006, it provoked both ... More »

91. Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century By Mark Blyth Mark Blyth argues that economic ideas are powerful political tools as used by domestic groups in order to effect change since whoever defines what the economy is, what is wrong with it, and what would improve it, has a profound political resource in their possession. Blyth analyzes the ... More »

92. The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism By Claude Lefort Claude Lefort is one of the leading social and political theorists in France today. This anthology of his most important work published over the last four ... More »

93. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China By Theda Skocpol | Used Price: 80% Off State structures, international forces, and class relations: Theda Skocpol shows how all three combine to explain the origins and accomplishments of social-revolutionary transformations. From France in the 1790s to Vietnam in the 1970s, social revolutions have been rare but undeniably of enormous importance in modern world history. States ... More »

94. The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925 By David Montgomery | Used Price: 90% Off By studying the ways in which American industrial workers mobilized concerted action in their own interest, the author focuses on the workplace itself, examining the codes of conduct developed by different types of workers and the connections between their activity at work and their national origins ... More »

95. The Wretched of the Earth By Frantz Fanon; Jean-Paul Sartre | 50% Off A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanonâ€™s masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Saidâ€™s Orientalism or The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it ... More »

96. Green Political Thought By Andrew Dobson | Used Price: 60% Off This highly acclaimed introduction to green political thought is now available in a new edition, having been fully revised and updated to take into account the areas which have grown in importance since the third edition was published. Andrew Dobson describes and assesses the political ideology of ... More »

97. Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition By Jack Snyder | Used Price: 70% Off Overextension is the common pitfall of empires. Why does it occur? What are the forces that cause the great powers of the industrial era to pursue aggressive foreign policies? Jack Snyder identifies recurrent myths of empire, describes the varieties of overextension to which they lead, and criticizes the ... More »

98. The Evolution of Modern States: Sweden, Japan, and the United States By Sven Steinmo | Used Price: 50% Off The Evolution of Modern States is a significant contribution to the literatures on political economy, globalization, historical institutionalism, and social science methodology. The book begins with a simple question: Why do rich capitalist democracies respond so differently to the common pressures they face in the early twenty-first century? ... More »

99. Theories of Distributive Justice By John Roemer | Used Price: 60% Off Equally at home in economic theory and political philosophy, John Roemer has written a unique book that critiques economists' conceptions of justice from a philosophical perspective and philosophical theories of distributive justice from an economic one. He unites the economist's skill in constructing precise, axiomatic models with ... More »

100. The Logic of Violence in Civil War By Stathis N. Kalyvas By analytically decoupling war and violence, this book explores the causes and dynamics of violence in civil war. Against the prevailing view that such violence is an instance of impenetrable madness, the book demonstrates that there is logic to it and that it has much less to do ... More »

The Political Science Books Top 100 list presents the best works of political theory, comparative politics, international relations, and public law. The list has a strong focus on political theory, as you might expect, and therefore includes mostly books on politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of the law by the state. Many works by the great modern political thinkers are included, such as those of Rawls, Habermas, Chomsky, Cohen, Taylor, Roemer, Gilligan, Sandel, Waltz, Foucault, and James Scott. But the list also includes many of the classics of the past, such as those by Plato, Mill, Humboldt, Ferguson, Marx, Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and Hume.