Michael Walzer

From the Athenian attack on Melos to the My Lai Massacre, from the wars in the Balkans through the first war in Iraq, Michael Walzer examines the moral issues surrounding military theory, war crimes, and the spoils of war. He studies a variety of conflicts over the course of history, as well as the testimony of those who have been most directly involved--participants, decision makers, and victims. In his introduction to this new edition, Walzer specifically addresses the moral issues surrounding the war in and occupation of Iraq, reminding us once again that "the argument about war and justice is still a political and moral necessity."

A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations

Just And Unjust Wars

A Defense of Pluralism and Equality

Spheres of Justice

A foreign policy for the left

A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations (Basic Books Classics)

Just and Unjust Wars

On Toleration

"Many of the successful campaigns for national liberation in the years following World War II were initially based on democratic and secular ideals. Once established, however, the newly independent nations had to deal with entirely unexpected religious fierceness. Michael Walzer, one of America's foremost political thinkers, examines this perplexing trend by studying India, Israel, and Algeria, three nations whose founding principles and institutions have been sharply attacked by three completely different groups of religious revivalists: Hindu militants, ultra-Orthodox Jews and messianic Zionists, and Islamic radicals. In his provocative, well-reasoned discussion, Walzer asks why these secular democratic movements have failed to sustain their hegemony: Why have they been unable to reproduce their political culture beyond one or two generations? In a postscript, he compares the difficulties of contemporary secularism to the successful establishment of secular politics in the early American republic--thereby making an argument for American exceptionalism but gravely noting that we may be less exceptional today"--

secular revolutions and religious counterrevolutions

The paradox of liberation

Now reissued in paperback: A classic consideration, with new material, of the life and work of eleven of the twentieth century's most important social critics and political philosophers

Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century

The Company of Critics

Maintaining that the trial and public execution of Louis XVI was an absolutely essential part of the French Revolution, Walzer discusses two types of regicide: the first, committed by would-be kings or their agents, left the monarchy's mystique and divine right intact, while the second was a revolutionary act intended to destroy it completely. Walzer defends the trial and execution of Louis XVI as necessary, since it not only tried to destroy the monarchy's mystique and divine right, but also required the deputies to fully explain their guiding philosophies and applied the rules of judicial process to establish equality before the law. New to this edition is an appendix containing "Revolutionary Justice," Ferenc Feher's classic rebuttal to Walzer's thesis, and Walzer's response, "The King's Trial and the Political Culture of the Revolution."

Speeches at the Trial of Louis XVI

Regicide and Revolution

The Revolution of the Saints is a study, both historical and sociological, of the radical political response of the Puritans to disorder. It interprets and analyzes Calvinism as the first modern expression of an unremitting determination to transform on the basis of an ideology the existing political and moral order. Michael Walzer examines in detail the circumstances and ideological options of the Puritan intelligentsia and gentry. He sees Puritanism, in sharp contrast to some generally accepted views, as the political theory of intellectuals and gentlemen attempting to create a new government and society.

A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics

The Revolution of the Saints

In this eagerly awaited book, political theorist Michael Walzer reports his findings after decades of reading and thinking about the politics of the Hebrew Bible. Attentive to nuance while engagingly straightforward, Walzer examines the commentary of the ancient biblical writers and discusses the implications for such urgent modern topics as the nature of political society, hierarchy and justice, the use of political power, the justification for and rules of warfare, and the responsibilities of clerical figures, monarchs, and their subjects./divDIV DIVBecause there are many biblical writers, and because they represent different political views, pluralism is a central feature of biblical politics, Walzer observes. Yet pluralism is never explicitly defended in the Bible—indeed it couldn't be defended since God's word is one. There is, however, an anti-political teaching which recurs in biblical texts: if you have faith in God, you have no need for particular political institutions or prudent political leaders or deliberative assemblies or loyal citizens. And, Walzer finds a strong moral teaching common to the Bible's authors. He identifies God's decree for ethics and investigates its implications for just policymaking in our own times./div

Politics in the Hebrew Bible

In God's Shadow

The distinguished political philosopher and author of the widely acclaimed Just and Unjust Wars analyzes how society distributes not just wealth and power but other social “goods” like honor, education, work, free time—even love.

A Defense Of Pluralism And Equality

Spheres Of Justice

Die wissenschaftliche Gerechtigkeitsdebatte, jahrelang dominiert von John Rawls’ »Theorie der Gerechtigkeit«, erhielt 1983 durch Michael Walzer eine bedeutende Wendung. In Abgrenzung von Rawls und anderen Gerechtigkeitstheoretikern entwickelte Walzer in seinem inzwischen klassisch gewordenen Werk seine Vision einer »komplexen Gleichheit«. Er geht davon aus, dass wahre Gerechtigkeit nicht durch einen wörtlich verstandenen Gleichheitsbegriff verwirklicht werden kann: Vielmehr verlangen verschiedene wichtige Güter – Reichtum, Macht, Arbeit, Liebe – auch verschiedene Modi der Verteilung. Walzer setzt sich nachdrücklich für einen neuen pluralistischen Gleichheitsbegriff ein, der bis heute nichts an Aktualität verloren hat.

Ein Plädoyer für Pluralität und Gleichheit

Sphären der Gerechtigkeit

The Company of Critics provides a fascinating survey of the terrain of social criticism in the last century. Organizing the book as a series of eleven intellectual biographies, Michael Walzer tells not just the dramatic story of the cultural and political radical but also the more personal story of the meaning of criticism to the critic. By looking at the life and work of Julien Benda, Randolph Bourne, Martin Buber, Antonio Gramsci, Ignazio Silone, George Orwell, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Breyten Breytenbach, Walzer explains the role of the public intellectual in the context of what he identifies as "the triumphs and catastrophes of our time: the two world wars, the struggles of the working class, national liberation, feminism, totalitarian politics."The new edition, featuring a new preface, contains Walzer's thoughts on his own role as a public intellectual and, most important, the challenges that lie ahead for the engaged social critic. With its unique emphasis on life as a proving ground for thought, The Company of Critics is a necessary addition to the literature of social and political engagement both within and outside of the academy.

Social Criticsm And Political Commitment In The Twentieth Century

The Company Of Critics

Charles Krauthammer

James M. Lindsay

Shibley Telhami

Louise Richardson

J. Bryan Hehir

How a nation commits itself to freedom has long been at the heart of debates about foreign aid, economic sanctions and military intervention. Moral and faith traditions have much to say about what is required to achieve this end. And after September 11, no one can doubt the importance of religious beliefs in influencing relations among peoples and nations. to fanaticism, or do they encourage a new realism about the forces shaping the choices confronting the US? The contributors to this volume come at the issue from very different perspectives and offer exceptional and unexpected insights on a question now at the forefront of American foreign policy.

A Dialogue on Religion and U.S. Foreign Policy in an Unjust World

Liberty and Power

Michael Walzer is one of the world’s most eminent philosophers on the subject of war and ethics. Now, for the first time since his classic Just and Unjust Wars was published almost three decades ago, this volume brings together his most provocative arguments about contemporary military conflicts and the ethical issues they raise.The essays in the book are divided into three sections. The first deals with issues such as humanitarian intervention, emergency ethics, and terrorism. The second consists of Walzer’s responses to particular wars, including the first Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And the third presents an essay in which Walzer imagines a future in which war might play a less significant part in our lives. In his introduction, Walzer reveals how his thinking has changed over time.Written during a period of intense debate over the proper use of armed force, this book gets to the heart of difficult problems and argues persuasively for a moral perspective on war.

Arguing About War

Professor Institute for Advanced Study Michael Walzer

The demise of Communism has not only affected Eastern Europe but also the countries of the West where a far-reaching examination of political and economic systems has begun. This collection of essays by internationally renowned scholars of political theory from Europe and the United States explores both the concept and the reality of civil society and its institutions.

Toward a Global Civil Society

John Higham

Edward T. Kantowicz

Examines how ethnicity affects voting and party loyalty and looks at leadership among minority groups

The Politics of Ethnicity

Nicolaus Mills

02 Dissent was founded in 1954 by intellectuals angered by the rightward drift of the country but uneasy with the dogmatism they saw on the American left, and it has provoked debates about political ideas and about American and global issues ever since. This provocative book—a collection of articles published in Dissent over the past fifty years—presents essays from each decade of Dissent's life that reveal how the magazine viewed that era, along with a new foreword to each section written by a contemporary Dissenter that provides perspective on the period.Articles include:* Norman Mailer on “Surplus Values and Mass Media”* Irving Howe on “New Styles in Leftism”* Theodore Draper on “Ghosts of Vietnam”* Sean Wilentz on “Bankruptcy and Zeal”* Michael Kazin on “A Patriotic Left”* Dwight MacDonald on “America, America”* and much more“I find these essays impressive not only in their quality but also in their surprising relevance to political life today.”—Robert Dahl, author of How Democratic Is the American Constitution? Dissent was founded in 1954 by intellectuals angered by the rightward drift of the country but uneasy with the dogmatism they saw on the American left, and it has provoked debates about political ideas and about American and global issues ever since. This provocative book—a collection of articles published in Dissent over the past fifty years—presents essays from each decade of Dissent's life that reveal how the magazine viewed that era, along with a new foreword to each section written by a contemporary Dissenter that provides perspective on the period.Articles include:* Norman Mailer on “Surplus Values and Mass Media”* Irving Howe on “New Styles in Leftism”* Theodore Draper on “Ghosts of Vietnam”* Sean Wilentz on “Bankruptcy and Zeal”* Michael Kazin on “A Patriotic Left”* Dwight MacDonald on “America, America”* and much more“I find these essays impressive not only in their quality but also in their surprising relevance to political life today.”—Robert Dahl, author of How Democratic Is the American Constitution?

50 Years of Dissent

Menachem Lorberbaum

Noam J. Zohar

Ari Ackerman

"This book launches a landmark four-volume collaborative work exploring the political thought of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present. The texts and commentaries in Volume I address the basic question of who ought to rule the community."--Descripción del editor.

Membership

The Jewish Political Tradition

Yair Lorberbaum

Noam Zohar

The third of four volumes in a distinguished series, this volume includes chapters on the nature of the communal bond, marriage and family, welfare, taxation, government, and criminal justice The four-volume series on the Jewish political tradition that includes this volume seeks to connect the political thought of ancient Israel and the Diaspora with the emerging traditions of the modern Israeli state. The first two volumes dealt with authority and membership, respectively; this third volume, with Madeline Kochen as coeditor, deals with community, with chapters on the communal bond, marriage and family, welfare, taxation, government, and criminal justice.

Michael Walzer

About

Books

Join the club