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unlikely that an essay question has had this effect on you, nor is it likely that an advert in a paper would produce this reaction. Nor is Rousseau’s method of writing, even if one has a secretary, necessarily a way in which many of us can work productively. It is not necessary to have this reaction to regard political theory as being interesting, or even useful.

      I was a very boring child. I became interested in politics at a very early age, spent my pocket money on political manifestos, and watched the news diligently every evening over dinner, and discussed the key issues raised with my family. The politics that I was interested in then, however, was the political reporting you see on the news, that is to say basic British politics. It wasn’t until I became an undergraduate student at the London School of Economics that I was introduced to the history of political thought, and it immediately became my passion. Learning about political theory opened my eyes to a new way of discussing politics. No longer do I see it as being about individual politicians, about parties and pieces of legislation; instead, I now like to think of it as about ideas, arguments, and justifications. Understanding the history of the ideas that we cherish so dearly today and how they developed, whilst also noting how relatively recently those ideas have occurred, fascinates me. Likewise, noting how political theory greats such as Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes and Karl Marx would criticize the political ideas by which we live today, albeit from entirely different angles and viewpoints, fascinates me. We should all of us examine the basic philosophical underpinnings of the way in which we live our political lives today.

I am an extremely lucky man in that I am able to make a living teaching the subject about which I am passionate to students at the University of Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. I no longer wish to simply learn about the history of ideas; I want to teach and enthuse others about the subject. I have been able to discuss all of the ideas contained within this book with many cohorts of students at the Universities of Southampton and Huddersfield, and I’ve arranged this text in the hope that you might become as fascinated by the topic as I am. Like so many other activities in life, one learns more about the subject the more one teaches it. Students ask different questions, apply them to different life experiences, and interpret the ideas in different ways. I have learnt far more about political theory from my students than they have ever learnt from me, and as a consequence this little book is a modest attempt to give something back to the discipline, in the hope that others may find it a useful guide to access the life-changing knowledge that is contained within the history of political thought.

      As a lecturer in political theory, I also think that there is something useful about the discipline for us in the contemporary world. We have become more ideologically polarized over the past few decades, and political discourse has become harsher, and more personal in its vitriol. Disagreement is inevitable in pluralist democratic societies, and this disagreement is nothing to be scared of in and of itself. I hope, however, that discussions around central theoretical political issues might go some way towards making political discussions more genteel and civilized.

      So the overall purpose of this book is to provide an introductory guide to some of the key questions in the history of political thought, and to provide a good sound knowledge of the ideas held by the key thinkers in political theory. I have written it in a particular way to attempt to make it accessible to anyone embarking on a journey of knowledge in political theory.

Why should we bother with the history of political thought?

      Virtually everyone discussed in this book is dead; many long since so. So why should we find their discussions of politics useful in our modern world? Obviously, seeing as how I have written 80,000 words on the topic, I think they are interesting, and I strongly suspect that they are useful, but it is worth reflecting on precisely why this might be the case before we go any further.

      To some of you, the question of interest and usefulness might be separate. We do not necessarily think watching Downton Abbey is useful, nor do we necessarily think this of a Shakespearean play or a novel by Goethe. We might engage with these things for the interest in and of themselves rather than helping us understand the present; we might enjoy it for the historical information it provides or the entertainment it brings. Likewise, one might be interested in the political ideas of historical figures and that that interest is sufficient reason to study them. This seems fine to me up to a point. Some of you might be interested in history, so to understand that John Locke’s outline of contractual government whose powers are limited by the pre-political powers of the individual was a contribution to debates on the Glorious Revolution in England would be of some interest. Here historical insight might be enough.

Others might be looking at these thinkers and debates in an attempt to understand why, say, Republicans in the United States view the political world differently to Democrats, or why the Labour Party is distinct from the Conservative Party in the UK. So here, studying political theory might have a contemporary use as opposed to only historical interest. A key use for the history of political philosophy is to show the genesis of the ideas that we hold today, and illustrate the changes and variations that they have gone through over the years. Take democracy for example; it is perhaps useful to know that the system of liberal representative democracy with universal suffrage that is dominant in the contemporary world is distinct from the direct democracy with limited citizenship that was practised in its first incarnation in ancient Athens. Also thinkers such as Rousseau provide us with a vocabulary to critique contemporary democracy if we do not think it extends sufficiently far. When using this justification for studying the history of political thought, we should be wary of presentism, the notion that all history is leading up to us, and avoid viewing the past through our concepts and concerns.

      Another way to study the history of political thought is to focus not on how our ideas have been shaped over time, but instead recognize just how different political concepts were in the past, and to use this as a critical activity. When women were completely ignored in politics, when, without irony, slave owners could write that all men were created equal, when others suggested that the monarch was put there by God and was the only person with any legitimate power, it is too easy to just say ‘how could they believe that’ and move on. The thing is that people did believe in these things; and they believed in them just as much as you or I believe in those political things that we believe in. The critical activity therefore rests in this; just as we are viewing ideas from the past with some incredulity, so too will people reading textbooks like this is a few hundred years look on us with amazement that we could think or act politically in a certain way. We should reflect on our beliefs and wonder what future generations will judge us harshly on. The history of political thought here is not history for its own sake, nor a history to show us how we became who we are, but rather a thought experiment urging us to be critical of the ideas commonly held today.

      Activity 1. Outline three commonly held beliefs in society today that you feel a student of political theory in 500 years will find problematic.

      (1)

      (2)

      (3)

       Reasons to study the history of political thought

      1 For simple historical interest

      2 To see how the ideas we have today have developed

      3 To acquire critical skills to assess our society

How to use this book

      This book has been organized to be a useful study guide for anyone interested in learning about political theory, be they a school or college student, or an autodidact who wishes to learn the basics on their own. No prior knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader, so the hope is that if the subject interests you, you can just jump straight in. It is a book for everyone, not only for people with substantial existing knowledge on this subject, or for that matter, any other. Perhaps you are studying political theory as part of a course at college or university. Perhaps you have become interested

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