Marsilius of Padua: The Defender of the Peace, Annabel Brett, ed. and trans., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. lxi, 569.

Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis is one of the key texts of medieval political theory. His thought forms a cornerstone of the transition from medieval to modern political reasoning and is one of the Western classics in the history of political ideas. This early fourteenth-century thinker is not only well known for his secular political thought but also for a theory of the Church that foreshadows the Reformation. The importance of Marsilius of Padua is demonstrated by a continuing and increasing scholarly interest in his ideas. Moreover, the growing number of translations and re-translations of Marsilius's writings indicates his significance for graduate and undergraduate education as well as for scholars whose primary expertise is not in medieval political thought.

Marginal Man: The Dark Vision of Harold Innis, Alexander John Watson, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006, cloth, $65.00, pp. xi, 525.

In the study of Canadian political thought, a young doctoral student wrote, and defended in 1981, an excellent PhD dissertation on Harold Innis. Unlike many works, it was based as much on an exhaustive examination of Harold Innis' papers as it was on Innis' published works. Unfortunately, A. John Watson did not continue in academia and his work was ultimately accessible only to the committed Innis specialist, willing to visit the U of T's Robarts Library or consult microfilm. After half a career as CEO of Care Canada, the international relief organization, Alexander John Watson has revised and published this work, making it accessible to a much broader audience.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche, Graham Parkes, trans., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. xliii, 335.

This new translation of Nietzsche's magnum opus is by far the best available in the English language. It should find its way to the desk of all students who do not have access to the original German.

Keynes et ses combats, Gilles Dostaler, Paris, Albin Michel, 2005, 535 pages.

L'ouvrage de Gilles Dostaler, Keynes et ses combats, cherche à réunir toutes les facettes de la vie et de l'œuvre de l'économiste anglais qui inspira une révolution économique après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Cet ouvrage est difficile à classer : il ne s'agit pas d'une biographie, même si de nombreux référents biographiques y sont inclus. Il ne s'agit pas non plus d'une introduction à la théorie économique de Keynes, même si Dostaler en fait l'axe central de son analyse des différents éléments de la pensée keynésienne. À travers les quatre principaux combats que Keynes a menés au cours de sa vie—philosophique, politique, artistique, et économique—l'auteur retrace de manière généalogique les influences et les inspirations de sa synthèse théorique, La Théorie générale. L'apport fondamental de l'ouvrage de Dostaler est de démontrer que la pensée économique de Keynes ne peut être comprise indépendamment de sa vision politique et de sa conception de la vie philosophique et sociale. De fait, avant d'être une science aux lois implacables à laquelle tous doivent se conformer, l'économie, selon Keynes, est politique, en ce qu'elle est le résultat d'un “ combat ” concernant la compréhension et l'interprétation de son objet étude. Aux yeux de Keynes, l'économie est non seulement politique, mais elle est aussi sociale, culturelle, morale, esthétique et même libidinale.

Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, Heinrich Meier, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. xxii, 183.

One of the debates accompanying the reception of Leo Strauss's lifework as it grows into an inescapable force in political philosophy has been this: Where does Strauss really stand on the relation between reason and revelation? Heinrich Meier's new book ends that debate.

Nature's Revenge: Reclaiming Sustainability in an Age of Corporate Globalization, Josée Johnston, Michael Gismondi, and James Goodman, eds., Peterborough: Broadview Press and Garamond Press, 2006, pp. 330.

In the 20 years since the Bruntland Commission popularized the notion of “sustainable development,” many have questioned whether this ambitious idea has any serious potential for realization or if it stands as a rhetorical mask for a policy of meagre reform. Such concerns are understandable, given how the ongoing challenges of global ecological change and the continuing imperatives of development leave us no justifiable alternative. Nobody would propose “unsustainable” development, whatever the ecological and human effects. But sustainability remains difficult to foresee, as it represents a journey into an unknown, with little in the way of a map to guide those who seek this path.

Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Saskia Sassen, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. xiv, 493.

How to make sense of globalization? Saskia Sassen's attempt, in Territory, Authority, Rights (TAR), is like globalization itself: vast, sweeping and forceful, but maddeningly hard to grasp. At best, we are dazzled and sure we're on to something important. At worst, it's difficult to say what exactly this is. At times, we fear we've been had.

Mémoires d'empire, de Romain Bertrand

La petite maison des Éditions du Croquant, située au cœur du massif des Bauges avec sa reine, la Dent de l'Arclusaz, publie ici le troisième livre de Romain Bertrand, politologue spécialiste de l'Asie du Sud-Est et de l'histoire politique de la colonisation. Mémoires d'empire analyse la controverse qui entoure la Loi (française) du 23 février 2005 portant sur le rôle positif de la colonisation française.

From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics, Donna Lee Van Cott, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004,pp. 300.

During the 1980s and 90s the English literature on Latin American politics in the Anglo North American and Anglo European academic worlds roughly evolved from works centrally concerned—and discursively interconnected—with various models of transitions to democracy to the necessary processes that the new electoral democracies had to undergo and the policies they needed to implement to advance in the process of consolidation of democracy. For scholars who essentially viewed these processes either as largely completed in institutional terms or on their way to institutional maturity and stability, the focus of scholarly attention then shifted to more subtle questions of democratic quality. Donna Lee Van Cott's From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics is a work that not only fits into the category of works fundamentally concerned with the issues and challenges associated with either the consolidation of democracy literature or the quality of democracy literature, but it is also a work that helps to develop the literature by highlighting a central variable of Latin American culture and politics, namely, indigenous ethnic movements and politics.

Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited, Simon Green and William E. Paterson, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 338.

Nearly twenty years after Katzenstein's diagnosis of the German polity as “semisovereign state,” this volume re-evaluates unified Germany in the light of the original study. It starts with a concise introduction by the editors to the original argument and to the challenges of unification to semisovereign governance. Then, eleven contributions cover Katzenstein's “policy nodes” (political parties, federalism, and parapublic institutions), developments in previously covered policy areas (economic and social policy, industrial relations, immigration, administrative reform) and two additional ones: the environment and EU integration. The volume is concluded by Katzenstein himself, arguing that despite many political and socio-economic changes, semisovereignty still reigns in Germany.

La légitimité de l'État et du droit. Autour de Max Weber., Michel Coutu et Guy Rocher (dir), Saint-Nicolas, Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 2005, 384 pages.

Bien que beaucoup d'ouvrages aient analysé les travaux de Weber, très peu se sont intéressés au concept de légitimité en soi, le considérant comme une notion univoque. Ce manque de réflexion sur le concept de légitimité constitue le point de départ de l'ouvrage La légitimité de l'État et du droit. Autour de Max Weber.

Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe, and the United States, Mikhail A. Alexseev, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. viii, 286.

As a political scientist, are you tiring of the rational choice approach? Is your research cramped by the requirements of political correctness? Are you fed up with the securitization of practically all forms of policy, including especially immigration? If so, then this is the book for you.