This is a significantly expanded edition of one of the greatest works of modern political theory. Sheldon Wolin's "Politics and Vision" inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. This new edition retains intact the original ten chapters about political thinkers from Plato to Mill, and adds seven chapters about theorists from Marx and Nietzsche to Rawls and the postmodernists. The new chapters, which show how thinkers have grappled with the immense possibilities and dangers of modern power, are themselves a major theoretical statement. They culminate in Wolin's remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form, 'inverted totalitarianism,' in which economic rather than political power is dangerously dominant.In this new edition, the book that helped to define political theory in the late twentieth century should energize, enlighten, and provoke generations of scholars to come. Wolin originally wrote "Politics and Vision" to challenge the idea that political analysis should consist simply of the neutral observation of objective reality. He argues that political thinkers must also rely on creative vision. Wolin shows that great theorists have been driven to shape politics to some vision of the good that lies outside the existing political order. As he tells it, the history of theory is thus, in part, the story of changing assumptions about the good. In the new chapters, Wolin displays all the energy and flair, the command of detail and of grand historical developments, that he brought to this story forty years ago. This is a work of immense talent and intense thought, an intellectual achievement that will endure.

谢尔登·S.沃林

谢尔登·S.沃林，美国普林斯顿大学政治学荣誉教授，先后在奥伯林学院、加利福尼亚大学伯克利、圣克鲁斯及洛杉矶诸分校、普林顿大学、康乃尔大学和牛津大学执教政治学理论凡四十年之久。他还是《民主》期刊的创办主笔。第一版《政治与构想》荣获利平科特政治理论奖。他的另一部著作《两个世界之间的托克维尔》于2003年获美国政治学会颁发的伊斯顿奖。

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辛亨复

辛亨复，籍贯江苏无锡，生于上海。华东师范大学英语语言文学学士，美国博伊西州立大学历史学硕士（肆业），工商管理硕士。已出版的人文社科译著有《权力角逐--政治领袖的成败之道》、《纽约简史》等。