Blog
Politics reading list
23rd June 2008
I have made a couple of additions to my Oxbridge reading list
The following can also be useful as a guide for those who want to read around the subject. Those marked with a double asterisk were highlighted as being helpful by successful applicants.
I haven’t made any hyperlinks to Amazon—prices and editions are changing all the time and finding the best deal isn’t onerous.
Classic texts
Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville, Penguin, ISBN: 0140447601
Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes, Oxford, ISBN: 0192834983
**On Liberty, John Stuart Mill, Oxford, ISBN: 0192833847
Second Treatise of Government, John Locke, Hackett, ISBN: 0915144867
Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill, Oxford, ISBN: 019875163X
The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, Oxford, ISBN: 0192834371
The English Constitution, Walter Bagehot, Oxford, ISBN: 0192839756
The Federalist Papers, James Madison et al, Penguin, ISBN: 0140444955
The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, Oxford, ISBN: 019280426X
The Republic, Plato, Penguin, ISBN: 0140449140
The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine, Oxford, ISBN: 0192835572
**The Social Contract, John-Jacques Rousseau, Penguin, ISBN: 0140442014
More recent attempts to explain Politics
After Blair: David Cameron and the Conservative Tradition, Kieron O’Hara, Icon, ISBN: 1840467959
In Defence of Politics, Bernard Crick, Continuum, ISBN: 0826487513
Presidential Power, Richard Neustadt, The Free Press, ISBN: 0029227968
What’s Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way, Nick Cohen, Fourth Estate, ISBN: 0007229690
Who Runs This Place?: The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century, Anthony Sampson, John Murray, ISBN: 0719565669
Why Politics Matters: Making Politics Work, Gerry Stoker, Palgrave, ISBN: 1403997403
The End of History, Francis Fukuyama, Harper, ISBN: 0380720027
The Right Nation: Why America is Different, John Micklethwait, Penguin, ISBN: 0141015365
The Ideas that Conquered the World, Michael Mandelbaum, Publicaffairs Ltd, ISBN: 1586482068
How Democratic is the American Constitution?, Robert Dahl, Yale, ISBN: 0300095244
Readable biographies
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama, Three Rivers, ISBN: 1400082773
Gladstone, Roy Jenkins, Pan, ISBN: 0330411713
Harold Wilson, Ben Pimlott, Harper Collins, ISBN: 0006379559
The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton, Joe Klein, Broadway, ISBN: 0767914120
Tony Blair: Prime Minister, John Rentoul, ISBN: 0751530824
William Pitt the Younger: A Biography, William Hague, Harper, ISBN: 0007147201