This is the first comprehensive volume to offer a state of the art investigation both of the nature of political ideologies and of their main manifestations. The diversity of ideology studies is represented by a mixture of the range of theories that illuminate the field, combined with an appreciation of the changing complexity of concrete ideologies and the emergence of new ones. Ideologies, however, are always with us.
The
Handbook is divided into three sections: The first reflects some of the latest thinking about the development of ideology on an historical dimension, from the standpoints of conceptual history, Marx studies, social science theory and history, and leading schools of continental philosophy. The second includes some of the most recent interpretations and theories of ideology, all of which are sympathetic in their own ways to its exploration and close investigation, even when judiciously critical of its social impact. This section contains many of the more salient contemporary accounts of ideology. The third focuses on the leading ideological families and traditions, as well as on some of their cultural and geographical manifestations, incorporating both historical and contemporary perspectives.
Each chapter is written by an expert in their field, bringing the latest approaches and understandings to their task. The
Handbook will position the study of ideologies in the mainstream of political theory and political analysis and will attest to its indispensability both to courses on political theory and to scholars who wish to take their understanding of ideologies in new directions.
Michael Freeden's books include The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978); Liberalism Divided (Oxford, 1986); Rights (Milton Keynes, 1991); Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford, 1996); Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2003); Liberal Languages: Ideological Imaginations and 20th Century Progressive Thought (Princeton, 2005); The Meaning of Ideology: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (ed.) (London, 2007). He is the founder editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies. He is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford and Honorary Professor in Political Ideology at the University of Nottingham.
Lyman Tower Sargent has been a visiting professor and fellow at universities in New Zealand and the UK. He is the author or editor of a number of books on ideologies, American political thought, and utopianism. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award of both the Society for Utopian Studies and the Communal Studies Association. The Society for Utopian Studies has named this award the Lyman Tower Sargent Distinguished Scholar Award. He is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Marc Stears is the author of
Demanding Democracy: American Radicals in Search of a New Politics (Princeton, 2010) and
Progressives, Pluralists and the Problems of the State (Oxford, 2002), as well as the joint editor of
Political Philosophy versus History? (Cambridge, 2012),
Liberalism as Ideology (Oxford, 2012) and
Political Theory: Methods and Approaches (Oxford, 2008). His own research concentrates on ideologies of democratic radicalism and social reform, especially in United States and Britain. He is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford and Fellow of University College, Oxford.
