The Dialogue in Hell between Montesquieu and Machiavelli is the source of the world's most infamous literary forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. John Waggoner's superb translation of and commentary on Joly's Dialogue--the first faithful translation in English--seeks not only to update the sordid legacy of the Protocols but to redeem Joly's original work for serious study in its own right, rather than through the lens of antisemitism. Waggoner's work vindicates a man who was neither an antisemite nor a supporter of the kind of tyrannical politics the Protocols subsequently served and...

Concentration camp survivor, former Marxist-Leninist and Lithuanian patriot, Aleksandras Shtromas devoted his life to understanding totalitarianism and political change. He was a remarkably prescient thinker and is probably best known for his prediction of the fall of the Soviet Union, forecast at a time when the mighty empire seemed almost invincible. This posthumous collection of writings, edited by Robert Faulkner and Daniel J. Mahoney, addresses some of the topics that preoccupied Shtromas throughout his life, including totalitarian regimes, postcommunist transitions, the fates of the...

This book provides careful readings of Aristophanes' Knights and Assemblywomen, and shows that in considering both plays as a pair each is better understood. While the Knights concerns the perfect democratic ruler, the Assemblywomen is about the perfect democratic law. The first close reading of these works and exploration of the connection between them, Aristophanes' Male and Female Revolutions not only illuminates these two plays, but also offers insight into questions at the core of political life. Kenneth De Luca's detailed analysis will be valuable to scholars of political philosophy,...

For Shakespeare, tyranny is a perpetual political and human problem. This work locates Shakespeare's expansive definition of tyranny between the definitions accepted by classical and modern political philosophy.