Human nature is political, and this volume explains why and how. It is of interest to students of political thought and behaviour, as well as those studying the history of ideas and political philosophy.

The subjects discussed in this book include the conceptions of human nature at the heart of political argument and theory; the identification of major theories of human nature and the functions they perform in epistemological and explanatory terms; the examination of key individual thinkers and major intellectual traditions, probing the origins and impact of each view of human...

In what is the first sustained analysis of Marx s attitude to the puzzle of the individual in history and society, this book, first published in 1990, challenges received views on the importance of class analysis and the place of a theory of human nature in Marx s thought. The radical possibilities of individual agency in society are explored within a Marxian framework, and without recourse to the current fashions of methodological individualism or rational choice theory. In the context of the apparent antagonism between collectivist and individualist approaches to political explanation...