Confronting Leviathan: A History of Ideas

Review Incredibly timely ... wonderful elegance and clarity through which complex ideas are presented ... The reader does not need to be considering the power behind lockdowns to read Confronting Leviathan. That the book helps make thinking about the state enjoyable is just the least of its many exceptional qualities ... a great guide -- Paschal Donohoe ― Irish TimesA brilliant introduction for anyone looking to engage with political debates beyond the headlines ... Excellent -- Joshua Pugh Ginn ― HeraldA studiously accessible work ― Times Higher Education Praise for How Democracy Ends:Presented in pellucid prose free of the jargon of academic political science, How Democracy Ends is a strikingly readable and richly learned contribution to understanding the world today ... surely one of the most luminously intelligent books on politics to have been published for many years. -- John Gray ― New StatesmanBracingly intelligent ... a wonderful read -- Mark Mazower ― GuardianFull of intriguing new lines of thought -- Gideon Rachman ― FTClear-headed, compact and timely ― Irish TimesRefreshingly free of received and rehearsed wisdoms, Runciman doesn't tiptoe around sacred cows and invites us to take part in that most adult way of thinking: to examine contradictory ideas in tandem and ponder what the dissonance amounts to. . . . [H]e argues lucidly, persuasively, even exhilaratingly at times. The nightly news will never appear exactly the same again ― AustralianRefreshingly, rather than a knicker-twisting diatribe about Trump and Brexit, Runciman offers a thoughtful analysis about what popular democracy means, and its alternatives -- Katrina Gulliver ― Spectator Product Description Based on the History Of Ideas podcast series by Talking Politics host David Runciman, A History of Ideas explores some of the most important thinkers and prominent ideas lying behind modern politics - from Hobbes to Gandhi, from democracy to patriarchy, and from revolution to lock down. While explaining the most important and often-cited ideas of thinkers such as Constant, De Tocqueville, Marx and Engels, Hayek, MacKinnon and Fukuyama, David Runciman shows how crises - revolutions, wars, depressions, pandemics - generated these new ways of political thinking. This is a history of ideas to help make sense of what's happening today. Book Description A primer on political theory from bestselling author and host of Talking Politics David Runciman About the Author David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the author of many books about politics, including The Politics of Good Intentions (2006), Political Hypocrisy (2008) and The Confidence Trap (2013). He writes regularly about politics and current affairs for a wide range of publications including the London Review of Books.Politics is the first book in Profile's new Ideas in Profile series.