Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader is a comprehensive compilation of classic and contemporary readings representing all major “isms.” It offers students a generous sampling of key thinkers in different ideological traditions and places them in their historical and political contexts. Used on its own or with Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal, the anthology accounts for the different ways people use ideology and conveys the continuing importance of ideas to politics.

New to this edition

The twelfth edition includes the following additions:



Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, “How Democracies Die” (two distinguished political scientists delineate the sources of democratic demise).
Ayn Rand, “Collectivized Ethics” (a well-known libertarian thinker argues that it is illegitimate for governments to legally mandate behavior that benefits other people).
Patrick Deneen, “Aristopopulism” (an influential conservative professor makes the case for a new kind of governing alliance between masses and elites).
Herbert Marcuse, “One-Dimensional Man” (a renowned twentieth-century Marxist argues that capitalism creates a set of false needs and beliefs that prevent workers from resisting it)
“Patriot Front Manifesto” (an Alt-Right white nationalist group attempts to link their ideology to American history and values)
Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations” (a prominent author argues that Americans should seriously consider what it would take to make amends to Black people for the ongoing effects of slavery, Jim Crow, and other forms of discrimination)
Kate Manne, “Ameliorating Misogyny” (a contemporary feminist philosopher redefines misogyny as the central mechanism for governing women’s behavior and upholding patriarchy)
Lorna Bracewell, “A Story of Queer Survival” (a lesbian feminist scholar links her personal coming-of-age experiences to the central beliefs of the gay liberation movement)
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, “Waking up from the American Dream” (a Harvard graduate and author who came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant describes the challenges faced by people who do not have the rights and privileges of full citizenship)
Pope Francis, “Laudate Deum” (the leader of 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide describes how he believes they, and other people of goodwill, should respond to the increasingly urgent climate crisis)
Dave Foreman, “In Defense of Monkeywrenching” (a leading radical environmentalist defends non-violent ecological sabotage as morally and politically legitimate)
Sayyid Abu’l-A‘la Mawdudi, “The Islamic Law” (a highly influential South Asian Islamist thinker defines and defends the necessity of shari-‘a for Muslim societies)
Hamas, “Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement of Palestine” (a leading radical Islamist group spells out its core tenets and basic aims at its founding)