Bagby, Laurie M. Political Thought-A guide to the classic.

Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 10
Davis, Belmont, CA 99002-3098 USA, 2002.

In the book of Laurie M. Bagby, she focuses in the different types of Philosophy.

The Philosophies are Idealism, Realism, Liberalism and the history as progress. Each

Chapter of her book was discussed properly. She started it by giving the definitions of

each terms written above.

In the first chapter of the book, she explains the nature of idealism. She defined

the word Idealism as well as the meaning of idealist. We all ready know that idealist is

the one who accept the doctrine of idealism. She added their beliefs like the absolute

truth and reasoning. There are also certain standards stated in her book such as what is

right and good and etc. The next Philosophy is Realism, realism was considered as the

opposite of idealism because they do not accept the goals and beliefs of the latter, they

simply rejected it. Laurie totally distinguished why realism is different from idealism. She

also justified the beliefs of the realists like the issue about change. Furthermore, it was

found out that realists are optimistic than the other. Liberalism is another Philosophy in

her book. In this chapter she defined the meaning of it that really usually comes into our

minds. What I like the most is that Laurie uses the definition of the three great authors

Mill, Locke and Rousseau. I discovered that Liberalism started from the assumption that

we humans are individualistic.

The book of Laurie can be summarize as comparison and contrast. Every Philosophy is

well discussed and you can really see the difference compared to others, though there

are similarities like liberalism and realism, but it does not dominate.
Ebenstein, Alan and William. Great Political Thinkers Plato to the Present. 6th ed.
Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 10 Davis, Belmont, CA 99002-3098 USA, 2000.

Great Political Thinkers Plato to the Present written by the two Eibenstein, Allan

and William is divided into three parts. The first part is contains about the ancient and

medieval like Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. The second part is all about the seventh

through eighteenth centuries such as Machiavelli. Bodin and Hobbes and the third part

focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries composed of Bentham, Hegel,

Tocqueville and etc. This book has a new information since there are political theory

that has changed.

In this book, there are new section that are added and compared to others, it has

a Christianity section which belongs to part 1. I observed that, in the previous edition of

this book it focused on the ancient and medieval only, good thing they added some

philosophers. Like the book of Laurie M. Bagby, the Ebensteins also included in their

book about Liberalism, Realism, socialism and other today's ism. This book tackles also

concept of liberty and theory of justice.

What I like in this book is that, they included Gandhi in their writings which is

good because not everybody knows him. Aside from that, the authors they include the

topic the welfare of the state and supported by the different personalities like Keynes.
Pojman, Louis P. Political Philosophy Classic and Contemporary Readings. McGraw-
Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. 2000

The book of Louis Pojman is composed of 13 chapters. Each chapters discusses

different topics the would help us in understanding political theories and philosophies.

These are Modern classics, Justification of the state and political obligation: Why should

I obey the law?, Liberty: The limits of the State and State Paternalism, Theories of

justice, State neutrality versus perfectionism: Should the State make people moral?,

Equality: Its nature and value, Rights and National sovereignty, patriotism, and

international government.
 In this book we will be able to know more about state and government on how

they preserve peace and order, justice and liberty. Over the decades, there are

questions that triggered on the mind of our philosophers such liberty, legitimacy of the

state, obeying the law of the state and many more. These are some issues that

bothered them and later came up into a philosophy which is vital in our society. This

book is a collection of the modern classic and contemporary readings of theories about

rights, liberty and etc.

In this book, it answered our questions on the different issues in our society

through the essays. It begins with an introduction of ancient and medieval and followed

of the modern classics. Each of the modern classic writers is really important because

of interconnection of the topics. What made this book unique to others is that, in every

chapter it started with an introduction about the problem of a certain issues tackled in

that chapter.

Farrelly, Colin. Contemporary Political Theories: Readings. SAGE Publication Ltd. 6

Bonhill Street London EC2A 4PU. 2004.

http://libro.eb20.net/Reader/rdr.aspx?b=354951
 This book is divided into two parts and each part composed of four chapters. The

part talks about contemporary liberal theory, this includes Rawls and Justice as

Fairness, Nozick and the Entitlement Theory of Justice, Gauthier and Justice as Mutual

Advantage and Dworkin on Equality. The second part tackled the alternative traditions

and these are the following alternatives Communitarianism, Multiculturalism,

Deliberative Democracy and Feminism.

This book concerns on how we ought to live together. It defines political theory which is

helpful to the reader for a better understanding. Like the book of Louis Pojman, the

different political concept (liberty, justice peace and etc.) can be also found in here. It

exclusively focuses on the debates on the contemporary political theories over the

decades.. This book exposes the main theoretical traditions and it stresses the vital role

of feminism,liberalism and more. It also concerns and enhance the critical thinking of

the reader through the various theories. The last is that, the topics that has been

stipulated in this book is that emphasizes the significance of the theory. These are the

few that we can find in the book of Farrelly.

MSU-Iligan Institue of Technology

College of Arts and Social Sciences

Department of Political Science

Tibanga, Iligan City

 An Annotated Bibliography

“Contemporary Political Theories”

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement in

Political Science 101

Miss. Yasmira Moner

Sonny Lester V. Lomansoc

AB Political Science

November 22, 2010