PS 310 Modern Political Thought
This course explores substantive primary texts in the modern tradition. It traces the evolution of post-feudal political thought from Niccolo Machiavelli in the 16th century to Karl Marx in the 19th century, mainly focusing on the “social contract” school of formative liberalism associated with the writings of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. As the political theorist Dante Germino has observed, the “conventional periodization of political history assumes that a profound break in the continuity of Western political speculation occurred around 1500.” This course follows this convention and concentrates on key books and essays by the most sophisticated political thinkers of the four centuries between 1500 and 1900.