Read Africa - eBooks | Read eBooks online

An Exhibit on Politics

Power

Federalist Papers, The (by Hamilton, Alexander)
Communist Manifesto, The (by Marx, Karl)
The Human Condition : Volume 5 (by Arendt, Hannah)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir)
War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)
Proposed Roads to Freedom : Socialism, A... (by Russell, Bertrand)
On Liberty (by Mill, John Stuart)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawy... (by Twain, Mark)
The Souls of Black Folk (by Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt)
The Origin and Growth of the Common Law ... (by Hamilton, Peter Joseph)
The Trial (by Kafka, Franz)
War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)
The Declaration of Independence and Lett... (by Jefferson, Thomas)
Political Ideals (by Russell, Bertrand)
Gulliver's Travels (by Swift, Jonathan)

Power: An Exhibit on Politics

This virtual exhibit examines the history of political ideologies and the on the application of personal and political power within the context of social and resource control. Throughout history, man has struggled for both control, and sovereignty. The concepts of freedom and independence have been great inspiration for writers throughout millenia. These documents are located in the following Collections: Politics, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Government, Law, Literature...among many other volumes of influential works.

The Social Mind

In Twentieth Century Political Thought, political philosopher Joseph S. Roucek draws from E.A. Ross and C.H. Cooley to say that the state has a “social mind” that prescribes forms and obligations to all associations, and shapes the societal composition. The modern discourse of political struggles is that political victors become the leading creators of the “social mind” that control the order of the defeated. This discourse is common in the study of politics that shape modern nations and international relations today (Twentieth Century Political Thought, Joseph S. Roucek).

The Review of the Management of Our Affairs in China, Since the Opening of the Trade in 1834; With an Analysis of the Government Despatches from the Assumption of Office by Capt. Elliott, on the 14th December, 1836, to the 22d of March, 1839 discusses the history of British influence in China’s opium trade. According to the author, the British collaborated with elite Chinese bureaucrats and merchants, creating profits for a few, but much havoc in the country (; With an Analysis of the Government Despatches from the Assumption of Office by Capt. Elliott, on the 14th December, 1836, to the 22d of March, 1839, Captain Eliot). The aggression of foreign powers entering into China for their own trade interests transformed the country into German, Russian, British and French “spheres of influence” (“May Fourth Movement,” World Heritage Encyclopedia). In this context, the “social mind” in China was actually being influenced by foreign powers rather than according to the interests of the Chinese themselves. According to China at the Peace Conference, August 1919, Paris became the site for the Peace Conference that brought together the world’s leaders to end the World War I (China at the Peace Conference, August 1919, Far Eastern Political Science Review). Wellington Koo and Cao Rulin represented China. Koo demanded an end to imperialist policies in China (“V.K. Wellington Koo,” World Heritage Encyclopedia). However, Western powers refused his claim. China was the only country that did not sign the Paris Peace Conference Treaty. This led to the May Fourth Movemen t in China (“May Fourth Movement,” World Heritage Encyclopedia).

Sovereignty

The writer, Roucek, also states that the indispensable elements of states are populations, territory and sovereign power. The quantity and quality of a population legitimizes a ruling power’s territorial administration. Sovereignty is described as political leaders raising the flag, erecting government buildings and instituting police and army forces to defend their territory. In the words of J.W. Burgess, the original, absolute, unlimited power of the state over individual and collective subjects that reside in that territory (Twentieth Century Political Thought, Joseph S. Roucek). This concept of sovereignty is demonstrated in the the writings of Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. He believed that a state’s stability is always subject to threat.

Niccolò Machiavelli was born in a time when France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland battled Italian city-states for regional influence and control (“Niccolò Machiavelli,” World Heritage Encyclopedia). Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a 16th-century political treatise which argued that there is a benefit to leaders using violence to achieve stability and security, also known as sovereignty (The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli). However, political sovereignty may also be born from the social, economic and psychic forces emerging out of the population. According to Popular Sovereignty, in order for a peaceful state to be achieved, informed individuals need to be willing to work toward it. It is the responsibility of the the institutions and laws to support the development of informed individuals who will in turn advocate for popular needs and interests (Popular Sovereignty, Charles Anthony).

Ideology

Roucek adds that the state’s power is founded upon territorial residence and control of vital economic items, such as property. Smaller political units called city-states evolved into states. Ancient monarchies expanded into empires. The ideological leadership of states can be absolutist, tyrannical, representative, democratic, socialistic, militaristic and industrial. Other ideological forms include aristocracy and democracy, theocracy, physiocracy and plutocracy. These differences in governments reflect the techniques that dominant groups use to exercise their power (Twentieth Century Political Thought, Joseph S. Roucek).

New political ideologies are adopted by groups as contexts shift. In 1835, French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America, documenting his travels to America and illuminating the amorphous nature of the state (“Alexis de Tocqueville,” World Heritage Encyclopedia). Through this book, he wanted to inform France about its changing position in the global arena due to the rise of Anglo-America as an emerging imperial power. De Tocqueville observed how state practice of aristocratic politics was giving way to a new ideal called democratic politics: American democracy allowed people to come together for the common cause of creating their political society according to civil laws, while also expanding across the North American continent (Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville).

Another type of political ideology is socialism, which would critique dominant political orders such as U.S. imperial power. In Revolutionary Socialism, A Study in Socialist Reconstruction, Louis C. Fraina wrote that imperialism is the height of capitalism as it animates the economic, social and political forces that structure capitalism to exploit workers. Thus, the death of capitalism is an opportunity to practice Revolutionary Socialism, in which proletariat workers depend upon themselves to produce their own needs, in order to change the elite-controlled society (Revolutionary Socialism, A Study in Socialist Reconstruction, Louis C. Fraina).

Works Cited

“Alexis de Tocqueville.” World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Anthony, Charles. Popular Sovereignty. London: Longmans, Green & Company, 2010.

Captain Eliot. Review of the Management of our Affairs in China, 1834; With an Analysis of the Government Despatches from the Assumption of Office by Capt. Elliott, on the 14th December, 1836, to the 22d of March, 1839. London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1840.

Far Eastern Political Science Review. China at the Peace Conference, August 1919. Canton: Diplomatic Association, 1919.

Fraina, Louis. Revolutionary Socialism. New York: The Communist Press, 1918.

Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

"May Fourth Movement." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Roucek, Joseph S. Twentieth Century Political Thought. New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1946.

“V.K. Wellington Koo.” World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Political Collections

Political matters refer to the calculation of forces that seek to assert power over territory and population. The Nature of Organized Power: An Exhibit on Politics features Roucek’s concepts such as the “social mind,” “sovereignty” and “ideology” to explore how a particular definition of order asserts its power over territory, and circulates its ideals to generate public consent of that order. However, this order is always shifting, as different political ideas co-exist and compete for the manifestation of their ideal reality.

Explore other books on politics in these collections.

Top 100 books on Politics

Federalist Papers, The (by Hamilton, Alexander)
Communist Manifesto, The (by Marx, Karl)
The Human Condition : Volume 5 (by Arendt, Hannah)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir)
War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)
Proposed Roads to Freedom : Socialism, A... (by Russell, Bertrand)
On Liberty (by Mill, John Stuart)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawy... (by Twain, Mark)
The Souls of Black Folk (by Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt)
The Origin and Growth of the Common Law ... (by Hamilton, Peter Joseph)
The Trial (by Kafka, Franz)
War and Peace (by Tolstoy, Leo)
The Declaration of Independence and Lett... (by Jefferson, Thomas)
Political Ideals (by Russell, Bertrand)
Gulliver's Travels (by Swift, Jonathan)

Top 100 books on Government

The Rights of the British Colonies Asser... (by Otis, James)
The Mayflower Compact
Japan and Her Destiny My Struggle for Pe... (by Mamoru Shigemitsu)
The Bolsheviki and World Peace (by Trotsky, Leon)
Democracy in America I (by Tocqueville, Alexis de)
Columbia Law Review (by Columbia University. School of Law)
Deposition of Air Pollutants to the Grea... (by Allan, Mary Ann)
The Principles of Natural and Politic La... (by Burlamaqui, Jean Jacques)
The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts : Rep... (by Massachusetts)
Assize of Arms
Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (by De Tocqueville, Alexis)
Institutes of Natural Law : Being the Su... Volume Vol. 1 (by Rutherforth, T., Thomas)
Discourses on the First (by Niccolò Machiavelli)
An Essay on the History of Civil Society (by Adam Ferguson)
Lao-Tzu : A Study in Chinese Philosophy (by Watters, Thomas)

Top 100 books on Anthropology

First Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth... (by Powell, J. W.)
Kon Tiki Across the Pacific by Raft (by Thor Heyerdahl)
African Systems of Kinship and Marriage (by Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (Alfred Reginald))
Story of Man: from the First Human to Pr... (by Coon, Carleton Stevens)
Notes and Queries on Anthropology (by Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain a...)
International Catalogue of Scientific Li... (by Royal Society, Great Britain)
Handbook of the Alabama Anthropological ... (by Alabama Anthropological Society, Montgomery.)
Handbook of American Indian Languages (by Franz Boas)
The races of man, and their geographical... (by Peschel, Oscar)
An Anthropologist's Life in the Twentiet... (by Foster, George Mcclelland)
American Anthropologist (by The American Anthropological Association)
The History of Mankind (by Ratzel, Friedrich)
The Human Species (by Armand De Quatrefages De Bréau)
Influences of Geographic Environment of ... (by Semple, Ellen Churchill)
Man from the Farthest Past : Volume 7 (by Bishop, Carl Whiting)

Top 100 books on Biographies

Slave Narratives : A Folk History of Sla... (by Ball, Andrea)
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Scul... Volume Vol. 6
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, V9 (by De Bourrienne, Louis Antoine Fauvelet)
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Scul... Volume Vol. 2 (by Foster, Jonathan, Mrs)
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Scul... Volume Vol. 9
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Volume ... (by Grant, Ulysses Sherman)
Celebrated Crimes Volume: 3 (by Dumas, Alexandre, 1802-1870)
Edison, His Life and Inventions (by Dyer, Frank Lewis)
Up from Slavery : An Autobiography (by Washington, Booker T.)
The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus (by Tacitus, Publius Cornelius Gaiu)
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick D...
Beethoven : The Man and the Artist, As R... (by Beethoven, Ludwig Van)
St. Francis of Assisi (by Chesterton, Gilbert Keith)
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Scul... Volume Vol. 7
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of... (by Equiano, Olaudah)

Top 100 books on History of India

Indias Hope (by Francis Henry Skrine)
A Century of Indian Epigrams : Chiefly f... (by Bhartrhari)
Why India is heart and soul with Great B... (by Bhupendra-Natha Vasu)
Supplement to The Modern History of Indi... (by Thomas Maurice)
The World's Story; A History of the Worl... (by Tappan, Eva March)
Lord Clive : The Foundation of British R... (by Arbuthnot, Alexander)
Clough, Kingdom-Builder in South India (by Hines, Herbert Waldo)
The History of Caste in India : Evidence... (by Shridhar Venkatesh Ketkar)
Stephen Hislop : Pioneer Missionary & Na... (by Smith, George)
Military Sketches of the Goorka War in I... (by India)
In and Out of the Homes of India (by Lee, Ada)
The Kingdom of Brass; Or, The History of... (by Bement, R. B.)
The Indian Constitutional Reforms as San... (by Prasad, Mathura, Rai Sahib)
De Portugal a Calecut, Monographia Histo... (by Freitas Cavalleiro E Sousa, Augusto Eugenio De)
The Appeal of Lieut. Colonel Charles Bar... (by Burr, Charles Barton)

Top 100 books on Philosophy

Sadhana, the Realisation of Life, Score ... (by Tagore, Rabindranath)
The Dialogues of Plato (by Plato)
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ... (by Hume, David)
Art of Controversy, The (or: The Art of ... (by Schopenhauer, Arthur)
The Wisdom of Life, Being the First Part... (by Arthur Schopenhauer, Thomas Bailey Saunders)
The Perennial Philospy (by Aldous Huxley)
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (by Wittgenstein, Ludwig)
Tao Teh King, The (by Laozi)
An Introduction to the Principles of Mor... (by Bentham, Jeremy)
A Letter Concerning Toleration (by Locke, John)
Treatise on Tolerance (by Voltaire)
Treatise Of Human Nature, Volume 1, A (by Hume, David)
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (by Hume, David)
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras (by Fabre Dolivet, Antoine)
The Sayings of Confucius: A New Translat... (by Confucius)

Top 100 books on Sociology

Woman : Her Charm and Power (by Downes, Robert P.)
Manifesto of the Communist Party (by Marx, Karl)
Civic Education : Sociological Foundatio... (by David Snedden)
The School as a Social Institution; An I... (by Robbins, Charles Leonidas)
Human Nature and the Social Order (by Cooley, Charles Horton)
The Threefold State, The True Aspect of ... (by Steiner, Rudolf)
Theories of society; foundations of mode... (by Parsons, Talcott)
Anthropology (by Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph))
Social Physics: From the Positive Philos... (by Auguste Comte)
Society, Its Origin and Development (by Rowe, Henry Kalloch)
Sociology and Modern Social Problems (by Ellwood, Charles Abram)
Eugenics Marriage and Birth Control Prac... (by William Josephus Robinson)
Homo-Culture; Or, The Improvement of Off... (by Holbrook, Martin Luther)
The War and Unity : Being Lectures Deliv... (by Cranage, David Herbert Somerset)
What a Young Woman Ought to Know (by Wood-Allen, Mary)

Top 100 books on Economics

The Poverty of Philosophy (by Marx, Karl)
Woman under Capitalism (by Tichenor, Henry Mulford)
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (by John A. Hobson)
The Prince (by Machiavelli, Niccolò)
The Abolition of Poverty (by Hollander, Jacob Harry)
Animal Farm (by Orwell, George)
The Servile State (by Belloc, Hilaire)
Leviathan (by Hobbes, Thomas)
Wage-Labor and Capital (by Marx, Karl)
A synopsis of the first three books of J... (by Mill, John Stuart)
A Contribution to the Critique of Politi... (by Marx, Karl)
Mutual Aid (by Kropotkin, P.)
The Soul of Man under Socialism (by Oscar Wilde)
1984 (by Orwell, George)
The Accumulation of Capital (by Luxemburg, Rosa)

Top 100 books on Law

The spirit of the laws; Volume: 11 (by Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de)
Roman Law in the Modern World (by Sherman, Charles Phineas)
Terrorism, Asylum Issues, And U.S. Immig... (by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee On the ...)
Meditations (by Aurelius, Marcus)
The Relations between the Laws of Babylo... (by Johns, Claude Hermann Walter)
The Federalist Papers (by Hamilton, Alexander)
Report to Congress in Accordance with 35... (by United States Department of the Treasury)
Report on the Right of the Government of... (by United States. Division of Insular Affairs)
Constitution of the New-England Anti-Sla... (by Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society)
The Case of the Cherokee Nation against ... (by Cherokee Nation)
Bracton's Note Book. A Collection of Cas... Volume Vol. 1 (by Great Britain. Courts)
Confucianism (by Anonymous)
The Wealth Of Nations (by Adam_Smith)
Terrorism, The Future, And U.S. Foreign ... (by Lee, Rensselaer)
The Athenian Constitution ; The Eudemian... (by Aristotle)

Political Science

United States congressional serial set; ... Volume Numbers: 4837-4841; Numbers: 4843-4844; no. 4848; Numbers: 4851-4853 (by United States. Government Printing Office)
United States congressional serial set (by United States. Government Printing Office)
Untitled : Photograph 8C02716V, 1935 (by Library of Congress)
Untitled : Photograph 8C12427V, 1935 (by Library of Congress)
The Lower South in American History
The peoples of Europe (by Fleure, H. J. (Herbert John))
Gordon Bennett International Balloon Tro... (by Harris & Ewing)
General View of Nablous and Mt. Ebal, Ph... (by American Colony Jerusalem)
Memoirs of Jacob Ritter / a Faithful Min... (by Foulke, Joseph, CA 1786-1863)
New York City Views. Bryant Park Chrysan... (by Schleisner, Gottscho)
United Service Club, Photograph Number 1... (by Harris & Ewing)
Jorge Caffaro Chapital Alias Gordo Villy... (by Department of National Security)
The Yorkshire question, or petition, or ... (by Smelt, Leonard)
Said confidentially [poems] (by Hill, Agnes Leonard)
Rural Filling Station Becomes Community ... (by Library of Congress)