This book has won the 2001 Best First Book Prize from the Foundations of Political Theory division of the American Political Science Association. The citation reads as follows:

In Plato's Democratic Entanglements, Sara Monoson uncovers and explores the connection between "two things usually viewed as thoroughly opposed - Plato's thought and Athenian democratic ideals and practices." To inform her inquiry, she draws upon her extensive knowledge of two bodies of recent scholarship: the literature in classics and political theory that reaches beyond the level of specifically governmental institutions to examine the civic practices and norms of Athenian democracy: and the literature on Plato that examines his philosophic practices and his involvement with the political life of his city.

Although fully cognizant of the antidemocratic features of Plato's thought, Monoson provides us with a more complex and nuanced account of the interaction between Plato's ideals of philosophic practice and the civic practices and ideals of democratic Athens. In particular, she shows the parallels between Plato's conception of the philosopher and the Athenian conception of the good democratic citizen - as lovers of the polis, as frank speakers, and as adherents of norms of deliberativeness and reciprocity.

Monoson's erudite analysis adds significant new dimensions and insights to a venerable scholarly debate and problematicizes overly simple understandings of Plato's political ideals, of Athenian practices, and of the standards for democratic citizenship. This book, in the words of Arlene Saxonhouse, "fully succeeds in bringing Plato into our conversations about democracy." It will reward the attention of all those classicists, philosophers, and political theorists interested in the issues she addresses.

This book has been awarded one of two Honorable Mentions for the 2001 Best First Book Prize from the Foundations of Political Theory division of the American Political Science Association. The citation reads as follows:

In The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel, Aviezer Tucker provides a captivating critical narrative of the Charter 77 movement in Czechoslovakia and of the ideas that inspired it. The result is an informative and provocative case study of the intersection of theory and praxis during a pivotal time in Eastern European politics. Patocka was the pre-eminent Czech philosopher during the thirteen year career of the Charter 77 movement, and his philosophy played a central role in its history. His life and fate, as Tucker observes, parallels that of Socrates in Athens; and Havel's role as a philosopher president presented him with the kind of problems Plato confronted in his reforming mission to Syracuse. Tucker illuminates this important chapter in recent history and provides thoughtful critical commentary on the post-Heideggerian and phenomenological ideas that his subjects brought to life.

This book has been awarded one of two Honorable Mentions for the 2001 Best First Book Prize from the Foundations of Political Theory division of the American Political Science Association. The citation reads as follows:

Patrick Deneen's The Odyssey of Political Theory is an engagingly written and elegantly crafted study of the long half-life of the figure of Odysseus in political theory. Deneen explores the fascination evinced by philosophers such as Plato, Rousseau, Adorno, and Horkheimer with the political themes and dilemmas on display in Homer's epic. And he adds to these hermeneutic contributions a thoughtful meditation of the lessons of the Odyssey for the contemporary confrontation of the claims of cosmopolitanism and particularism upon our loyalties.

John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty as a co-winner of the 1999 Best First Book awad from the Foundaions of Political Theoy section of the American Political Science Associatio. The award citation reads as follows: "In John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty, C. Bradley Thompson offers us a thoughtful and compelling revisionist account of Adams's politics and political theory. Thompson begins by showing how Adams's critical rethinking of Calvinism led him to reject it in favor of a Lockean conception of the problem of liberty, social order and political authority. The question of politics and government, then for Adams, was how to protect the natural liberty and rights to which each freeman is entitled through constitutional arrangements that are the work of philosophy, reason, and free will rather than grounded in tradition and common law. By posing the problem in this fashion, Thompson argues, Adams developed the most systematic science of politics of all early American political thinkers. This science of politics is grounded in Baconian principles of science, the lessons of history, and a science of human nature. From these foundations it is possible to identify the distinctive requirements of modern (vs. classical republicanism) and the imperatives and principles of political architecture. In the process, Thompson demonstrates that Adams's prescription for political life was both complex and original. Rejecting both direct democracy and classical republicanism, Adams opted for a republican constitution that would constrain and elevate the passions excited by commercial society. Indeed, it was Adams's belief that a properly constituted public sphere would help cultivate the kind of modest virtues among citizens that were preferable to the vaunted glory of classical antiquity. In demonstrating the complexity and depth of John Adams's politics and political thought, Bradley Thompson provides us with a cogent argument for reconsidering Adams's place in the Founding period and the relevance of his thought for contemporary politics."

Voice, Trust, and Memory was a co-winner of the Best First Book award from the Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political Science Association. The award citation reads: "Voice, Trust, and Memory is a powerful and well-argued exploration of the relevance of identity to democratic representation. Williams's approach to the constitution of identity and the nature of democracy and representation is rigorous and thorough. Her analysis is sophisticated. She treats with subtlety and precision issues that too often are reduced and simplified by political discourse. In particular, Williams argues that members of historically disadvantaged groups are best represented by other members of those groups. Such members can bring the memory of discriminatory experience to bear on the expression of the group's preferences, and thereby give such groups a more genuine voice. The absence of embodied, experiential memory, characteristic of representation in liberal democracy, often engenders mistrust in the democratic process on the part of such groups; such a lack of trust often compromises the ideals and the efficacy of democracy. Williams's reconceptualization of representation is designed to help foster the trust that is necessary to support democratic institutions, and that is also desirable by the lights of democratic principles. Her focus on women and African-Americans to construct these arguments attends to the specific problems these groups face in liberal democracy. She makes substantive contributions to the theoretical and political literature on these specific groups. She also raises broader questions that transcend the particular boundaries of these two groups, and that apply to any group-based identity within liberal democracy, indeed, to the very nature of political representation itself. All in all, this is a deeply thoughtful and thought-provoking consideration of issues that lie at the heart of contemporary political and theoretical debate."

This book was awarded the Best First Book Award from the Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political Science Association. The award citation reads: "Alan Patten's Hegel's Idea of Freedom is an impressive intellectual achievement very much deserving of the Foundations of Political Theory First Book Prize. Written in vivid but jargon-free prose, Hegel's Idea of Freedom offers a philosophically rigorous account of the central place of the concept of freedom in Hegel's political theory, rightly underscoring the manner in which Hegel's complex discussion of Sittlichkeit (Ethical life) plays a pivotal role in the German philosopher's thinking about western modernity. Although hardly uncritical of Hegel, Patten provides a cautiously supportive exegesis of Hegel's interpretation of the modern world and its core institutions. Patten not only shows how Hegel's argument represents a judicious defense of the quintessentially modern quest to make freedom the central organizing principle of social and political life, but also why Hegel's theoretical framework provides him with the resources necessary to defend key aspects of modernity against critics of many different political and philosophical persuasions. Without overstating his claims, Patten provocatively suggests that Hegel still speaks to contemporary political theory in a host of interesting ways. Patten's book not only revisits Hegel's ideas about many traditional issues in political theory (for example, property and the social contract), but it also offers an excellent critical discussion of major attempts within recent philosophy (for example, in the work of Charles Taylor) to rely on Hegel for contemporary purposes. By emphasizing a side of Hegel's political philosophy often neglected by both sympathizers and detractors, Patten also makes an important contribution towards revising standard accounts of Hegel's place within the history of modern political thought."

Contrary to how things appear in the Amazon listing, Gellner wrote all of this book, not merely the introduction. The book mostly consists of essays published 1979-1985. Incisive and delightful to read as always, Gellner here discusses Durkheim, Malinowski, Arendt, and Wittgenstein, nationalism, totalitarianism, industrialization, and egalitarianism.