Looking for a good, unbiased reader in political theory?

[Tim Exile]

I'm looking for a reader or introductory text. Just to get a taste of the main players before I escape sense on ill-founded tangents. Nothing too boneheaded or slanted though. :)

[Lady E]

I always really liked

"Using Political Ideas' by Barbara Goodwin (Wiley)

It was a set text on my Politics A level. It covers Ideologies (Liberalism, Marxism etc) and Ideas (Democracy, Social Justice etc).

My tutor was a raving Marxist, but didnt tell us that until the end of the course, and none of us could tell although we assumed he was on the left. However, he really rated this book, and I think it is a pretty unbiased exploration of the ideas. He was a brilliantly intelligent man and an excellent teacher so I can recommend it. A current edition may well be updated as the copy I have was reprinted in 1990 - but in terms of ideologies and concepts, things dont change that quickly so much of the content is probably still relevant.

[phil]

Tim, do yourself a favour. Stick to making drum and bass songs. Stay out of politics. Like your dad used to say. I wouldn't be the area manager of Dixons if I did DMT, ACID and K in one go.

[love_tempo]

About 3 years ago I was looking for something similar but if you look around a lot of universities just set a good reading list comprised of the original texts and ask the students to read that.

A lot of the key texts are copyleft now so you can go to Project Guttenberg and the like and read the whole texts starting from say Socrates. It can be better than being spoon fed already digested material. If you do a search you can find a good reading list and dive in.

I found it was a lot more interesting to read the original texts than someone's interpretation. You also get a picture of their character and how they expressed themselves. And many of the most important works are suprisingly short.

[V Knid esq]

Raymond Williams 'Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society'. Again a lefty, but it's still quite a good overview.

[Tim Exile]

Thank you folks... I'll pursue your avenues so to speak