This book develops a framework for the comparative analysis of political ideologies. The author uses the framework to examine the major political ideologies of our time: nationalism, fascism, Marxism, Leninism, guerilla communism, and democracy (including democratic socialism, democratic capitalism, liberalism, and conservatism). A chapter is devoted to each ideology. The book concludes with a discussion of the differences between political ideology, theory and philosophy and of the question of the "decline of ideology". Throughout, the book assumes no prior knowledge of political ideologies.