Best Books About Political Science

The best books about political science and international relations, as suggested by the most famous public figures, scholars, and experts in the field. But at first, we know the history of political science. As a reason, the vast majority of people will agree that we’re in an unprecedented era of world politics. Political science may be defined as the science of the state and government.  Its deals with the associations of human being that from political units, with the organization of their government, and with these government’s activities in making and administering the law and carrying on interstate relations.


In the historical aspect, political science deals with the state’s origin and the development of political institutions and theories. Government and politics have been examined and remarked on since the time of the ancient Greeks. It interprets movements and tendencies in the process of change and evolution. In dealing with the present, it attempts to describe, compare, and classify existing political institutions and ideas. Political science also looks to the future, to the state as it should be, to improve political organization and activities in the light of changing conditions and change ethical standards.

Thus, it is a study of the state in the past, present, and future of the political organization and political function of political institutions and political theories. From this material, it attempts to explain the nature of the state and deduce the laws of its growth and development and suggest needed reforms in political institutions and activities in a world that is undergoing rapid change.

Find below reading lists on ancient, Medieval, recent, and modern political thought, political theory, comparative politics, international relations, and international politics. The list has a strong focus on political theory, as you might expect, and therefore includes mostly books on politics, Foreign Policy, International Law and Organization, liberty, Political Organization justice, rights, Political Party, Political Institutions, Geo Politics, Political Economy, and the implementation of the law by the state.

Here are 15 plus best political science books that will help make you sharpen your political knowledge and smarter about the world and American politics.

1.Republic

by Plato (Author), Robin Waterfield (Translator)

REPUBLIC is a sprawling work. It is written as if it were the record of an actual conversation, and to a certain extent, it meanders like a true conversation. The topic of morality unifies it, but it also takes several Other major philosophical areas and throws out a huge number of lesser ideas. Reading Plato should be easy; understanding Plato can be difficult. He wrote philosophical literature, not philosophical textbooks. Sometimes he stresses fairly unimportant things; sometimes, he underplays vital philosophical issues. Not everything is sewn up
tight; issues emerge and then go underground, sometimes never to reappear. This procedure raises half-questions in the reader’s mind. There often seems to be slightly more going on than one can immediately grasp. Buy Now and Read More

2. Aristotle’s “Politics.”

by Aristotle (Author), Carnes Lord (Editor, Translator, Introduction)

One Of the fundamental works Of Western political thought, Aristotle’s masterwork is the first systematic treatise on the science of politics. For almost three decades, Carnes Lord’s justly acclaimed translation has served as the standard English edition. Widely regarded as the most faithful to both the original Greek and Aristotle’s distinctive style, it is also written in clear, contemporary English.

This new edition of the Politics retains and adds to Lord’s already extensive notes, clarifying the flow of Aristotle’s argument and identifying literary and historical references. A glossary defines key terms in Aristotle’s philosophical, political vocabulary. Lord has made revisions to problematic passages throughout the translation to enhance both its accuracy and readability. He has also substantially revised his introduction for the new edition, presenting an account of Aristotle’s life about political events of his time; the character and history of his writings and the Politics in particular; his overall conception of political science; and his impact on subsequent political thought from antiquity to the present. Further enhancing this new edition is an up to date selected bibliography.

“This revised edition of Aristotle’s Politics’ easily establishes it as the best available in English. By offering a longer introductory essay that grapples with the substance of Aristotle’s argument, a new index revamped notes, and most important, by revising and correcting the text, Carnes Lord has substantially improved what was already a fine rendering of Aristotle’s classic account of political science. A great service to students and scholars alike.” ROBERT c. BARTLETT, co-translator of Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” Buy Now and Read More

3. J. S. Mill: ‘On Liberty’

by John Stuart Mill (Author), Stefan Collini (Editor)

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case, he is justly accountable to them for the injury.” ― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty.  John Stuart Mill is a British political and economist philosopher, expert, and government employee. The plant is one of only a handful few undeniably great creators ever of thought. Talked about and bantered from time immemorial, The idea of individual freedom abandoned codification until the 1859 production of On Liberty. On Liberty, first published in 1851, has turned out to be commended as the most dominant guard of the individual’s opportunity. It is presently viewed as the most critical hypothetical establishment for Liberalism as a political statement of faith. Correspondingly, his The Subjection of Women, an incredible arraignment of ladies’ political, social, and monetary position, has turned out to be one of the cardinal reports of current women’s rights. This version unites these two great writings, in addition to Mill’s after death Chapters on Socialism, his to some degree ignored examination of the qualities and shortcomings of different types of Socialism. The Editor’s significant Introduction puts these three works in the setting both of Mill’s life and nineteenth-century scholarly and political history and evaluates their proceeding with importance. Buy Now and Read More

4.A Theory of Justice

Author by John Rawls

John Rawls was James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. “A Theory of Justice” interpretation of the social contract theory.Even though the overhauled release of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999. is the conclusive articulation of Rawls’ view, such a large amount of the broad writing on Rawls’ hypothesis alludes to the principal version? This reissue makes the primary version and accessible for researchers and genuine understudies of Rawls’ work.

This is a long book, not only in pages. Therefore, to make things easier for the reader, a few remarks by way of guidance. The theory of justice’s fundamental intuitive ideas is presented on pages 1-4 of Chapter I. From here, it is possible to go directly to discuss the two principles of justice for institutions on pages 11-17 of Chapter H, and then to the account of the original position in Chapter III, the whole chapter. A glance at  8 on the priority problem may prove necessary if this notion is unfamiliar. Next, parts of Chapter IV, page 33-35 on equal liberty and page 39-40 on the meaning of the priority of liberty and the Kantian interpretation, give the best picture of the doctrine. So far, this is about a third of the whole and comprises most of the theory’s essentials. However, there is a danger that without consideration of the argument of the last part, the theory of justice will be misunderstood. In particular, the following sections should be emphasized: page 66-67 of Chapter VII on moral worth and self-respect and related notions, page 77 of Chapter VIII based on equality; and page 78-79 on autonomy and social union, page 82 on the priority of liberty, and page 85-86 on the unity of the self and congruence, all in Chapter IX. Adding these sections to the others still comes to considerably less than half the text. The section headings, the remarks that preface each chapter, and the index will guide the reader to the book’s contents. It seems superfluous to comment on this except to say that I have avoided extensive methodological discussions. There is a brief consideration of moral theory’s nature on page 9 and justification on page 4 and page 87. A short digression on the meaning of “good” is found on page 62. Occasionally there are methodological comments and asides, but for the most part, I try to work out a substantive theory of justice. Comparisons and contrasts with other theories, and criticisms thereof now and then, especially of utilitarianism, are viewed as means to this end.

By not including most of Chapters IV—VIII in the more basic parts of the book, I do not suggest that these chapters are peripheral or merely applications. Rather, I believe that an important test of a theory of justice is how well it introduces order and system into our considered judgments over a wide range of questions. Therefore, these chapters’ topics need to be taken up, and the conclusions reached modify in turn the view proposed. But in this regard, the reader is freer to follow his preferences and look at the problems that most concern him. Buy Now And Read More

5.The Prince

Author by Niccolo Machiavelli

By Niccolo Machiavelli, the Prince is one of the most influential and perhaps the first treatise of modern political philosophy. For the first time in modern times, the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. Pragmatism: achieving one’s goals without being deterred by abstract scrupulous, that is Machiavelli’s great innovation and contribution to the founding of what is considered modern politics.

In The Prince, Machiavelli emphasized the need for realism, as opposed to idealism. He doesn’t dwell on the best ethical or political goals; his only concern is the control of a prince’s own fortune. Princes should take fate into their own hands and not wait for circumstances to dictate their destiny.

Machiavelli took for granted that would-be leaders naturally aim at glory or honor. He moved the focus of virtues away from prudence to innovation and risk-taking, harkening back to ideals of Greek and Roman pre-Christian times, and away from prudence and stability, which were the  Buy Now And Read More.

6.Democracy in America

by Alexis de Tocqueville (Author), Harvey C. Mansfield (Translator), Delba Winthrop (Translator)

De La Démocratie en Amérique is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Harvey C. Mansfield (Translator), Delba Winthrop (Translator), translates the title as On Democracy in America, but English translations are usually entitled Democracy in America. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) came to America in 1831 to see what a great republic was like. “Democracy in America will continue to be read with profit as long as the United States survives as a republic and, indeed, as long as democracy endures. It deserves faithful translators, careful expositors, and insightful commentators. In Mansfield and Winthrop it has found them.”—Robert P. George, Times Literary Supplement.

What struck him more than anything else was the nation’s balance of conditions, its democratic system. On his arrival to France, Democracy in America is both the best at any point composed on the democratic system and the best at any point written in America. It remains the regularly cited book about the United States, not just because it has something to intrigue and satisfy everybody, yet additionally because it has something to educate everybody.

When it was distributed in 2000, Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop’s new interpretation of Democracy in America—just the third since the first two-volume work was distributed in 1835 and 1840—was commended in all quarters as the best and most complete release of Tocqueville’s exemplary up to this point. Mansfield and Winthrop have reestablished the subtleties of Tocqueville’s language, with the communicated objective “to pass on Tocqueville’s idea as he held it as opposed to repeating it in practically identical terms of today. However, The outcome is an interpretation with insignificant understanever, with faultless explanations of new references and a mind-blowing presentation putting the work and its creator in the more extensive political rationality and statesmanship settings. Buy Now and Read More

7.Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil

Author by Thomas Hobbes

This book, written by Thomas Hobbes and published in 1651. Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan; his work concerns society’s structure and genuine government and are viewed as one of the soonest and most powerful instances of the implicit understanding hypothesis. Leviathan positions as an exemplary Western work on statecraft practically identical to Machiavelli’s The Prince. Composed amid the English Civil War (1642– 1651), Leviathan contends for an implicit understanding and principle by a sovereign’s flat out. Hobbes composed that common war and the beast circumstance of a condition of nature (“the war of all against all”) must be evaded by a solid, unified government.

“Leviathan or the matter, form and power of a commonwealth ecclesiastical and civil”  commonly referred to as leviathan – is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and published in 1651 (revised Latin edition 1668). its name derives from the biblical Leviathan. The work concerns society’s structure and legitimate government and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. Leviathan ranks as a classic western work on statecraft comparable to Machiavelli’s the prince. Written during the English civil war (1642-1651). leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Thomas Hobbes wrote that a strong undivided government could only avoid civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature (“the war of all against all”). Buy Now And Read More

8.The Communist Manifesto

Author by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

You have nothing to lose but your chains.  The Communist Manifesto is an 1848 political most influential booklet by the German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It is hard to comprehend the most recent 170 years’ historical backdrop without understanding the book’s pith. The world it depicts in the mid-nineteenth century with a lower class that works and a high society that rules is as yet exact in our present reality. Buy Now And Read More

9.The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Author by Samuel P. Huntington

In the summer of 1993, the journal Foreign Affairs published an article of mine titled “The Clash of Civilizations?”. According to the Foreign Affairs editors, that article stirred up more discussion in three years than any other article they had published since the 1940s. It certainly stirred up more debate in three years than anything else I have written. The responses and comments on it have come from every continent and scores of countries. People were variously impressed, intrigued, outraged, frightened, and perplexed by my argument that the central and most dangerous dimension of the emerging global politics would be a conflict between groups from differing civilizations. Whatever else it did, the article struck a nerve in people of every civilization.

Based on the author’s seminal article in Foreign Affairs, Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is a provocative and prescient analysis of the state of world politics after the fall of communism. In this incisive work, the renowned political scientist explains how ‘civilizations” have replaced nations and ideologies as the driving force in global politics today and offers a brilliant analysis of the current climate and future possibilities of our world’s volatile political culture.

“Sam Huntington, one of the West’s most eminent political scientists, presents a challenging framework for understanding the realities of global politics in the next century. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is one of the most important books to have emerged since the end of the Cold War.” -HENRY A. Kissinger Buy Now and Read More.

10.On the Social Contract

Author by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Wootton (Introduction), Donald A. Cress (Translator)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was by birth a citizen of Geneva.3 His mother died as a consequence of giving birth to him, and his father was an unsuccessful watchmaker who fled Geneva when Jean-Jacques was ten to avoid prosecution for assault. Jean-Jacques became, in effect, an orphan. He briefly tried out as a pupil clerk with a notary but was dismissed for stupidity. Just before he turned thirteen, he was apprenticed to an engraver. His master beat him; he responded by stealing, and his master beat him all the harder. When he was fifteen, Jean-Jacques went out of the city one Sunday on a jaunt. The city gates were closed a little early, and he and his friends found themselves locked out. Rather than return with his friends the next day for the inevitable beating, Jean-Jacques set out into the unknown. He was homeless, penniless, and friendless. He was to spend the rest of his life looking for a home, but he was incapable of finding one. Nothing could adequately correspond to his imaginary ideal, the home he would have had if his mother had lived.

This new edition features a revision by Donald A. Cress of his bestselling 1987 translation of On the Social Contract together with Introduction, footnotes, and chronology by David Wootton, one of our leading historians of the Enlightenment. Buy Now and Read More

11.Two Treatises of Government

by John Locke (Author)

An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government. Two Treatises of Government is a work of political philosophy published innominate in 1689 by John Locke. John Locke (1632–1704), widely known as the Father of Classical Liberalism, was an English thinker and physician holder as one of the most influential Enlightenment philosophers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, philanthropist the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. The Treatises of Government, particularly the Second Treatise, are cornerstone works in Western thought. The First Treatise is devoted primarily to demolishing the notion that monarchical rule is divinely sanctioned and is mainly of interest to scholars. However, the Second Treatise is a fundamental work that can be read profitably by anyone interested in philosophy, ethics, and European history. Locke develops an optimistic social contract theory in which men band together to overcome some of the states of nature’s defects. This is the origin of government, which rests on the governed’s consent and is supposed to be in the service of the governed. Locke devotes a fair amount of the Second Treatise to outlining his conception of political power, in many respects a judicial one, and a broad discussion of acceptable governments’ structure. While some important aspects of Locke’s scheme, notably his affirmation of a social contract theory as the historical basis for government, are clearly wrong, many of his ideas became fundamental to our present ideas of a justified society. The notions of intrinsic human rights and government depending on consent are essential. The Second Treatise is a relatively short work, and aspects of interpretation are ambiguous. A perfect example is an emphasis on property. Locke is regarded commonly, especially by conservative intellectuals, as the defender of private property strictly construed. There is some justification for this interpretation. On the other hand, in the state of nature, at any rate, Locke is quite clear that individuals should use only what they need for reasonable subsistence, and he is opposed clearly to social dominance in any society. Locke’s view of how economic property is created is quite interesting. In the state of nature, at least, the property is created by the admixture of human labor with the earth’s fruits. This is a labor theory of value, and in Locke’s case, the value created has an economic component and a moral dimension. The labor theory of value had a distinguished history in early economic thought and became a prominent component of Marxist political theory. This makes Locke an ancestor of 19th-century laissez-faire theorists and their greatest critic, Karl Marx Read More And Buy Now.

12.Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws

Author by Charles de Montesquieu. Anne M. Cohler (Editor), Basia Carolyn Miller (Editor), Harold Samuel Stone (Editor)

The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in eighteenth-century thought history. Yet, there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu’s problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand quite why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early Enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was, for example, such an influence upon those who framed the American constitution. Fully annotated, this edition should focus attention upon Montesquieu’s use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than upon the opening passages towards which critical energies have traditionally been devoted, and a selected bibliography and chronology are provided for those coming to Montesquieu’s work for the first time. Read More And Buy Now

13.The Wealth of Nations (Modern Library)

Author by Adam Smith, Edwin Cannan (Editor)

The modern library of the world’s best books.

“Adam smith’s enormous authority resides, in the end, in the same property that we discover in Marx, not in any ideology, but to see to the bottom of things. In both cases, their greatness rests on an unflinching confrontation with the human condition as ” they could best make it our. The Wealth of Nations was published March 9, 1776.amid the Scottish Enlightenment and the Scottish Agricultural Revolution. It affected a few writers and business analysts, for example, Karl Marx, just as governments and associations, setting the terms for monetary discussion and discourse for the following century and a half. For instance, Alexander Hamilton was impacted to a limited extent by The Wealth of Nations to compose his Report on Manufactures. He contended against a significant number of Smith’s approaches. Hamilton put together quite a bit of this report concerning the thoughts of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and it was, to some degree, Colbert’s thoughts that Smith reacted to, and censured, with The Wealth of Nations.

The Wealth of Nations is by and largely viewed as the establishment of contemporary financial ideas. Adam Smith, a Scottish educator of good theory, clarified the then-progressive teaching of monetary radicalism. Smith’s companions promptly perceived the book’s significance, and later financial analysts have appeared uncommon in their profound respect for his thoughts.

Consolidating financial aspects, political hypothesis, history, logic, and reasonable projects, Smith accepts that human personal responsibility is the fundamental mental drive behind financial aspects. A characteristic request known to humanity makes all the individual, self-intrigued striving indicate the social great. His decision that the best program is to disregard the monetary procedure and that administration is helpful just as a specialist to protect request and perform routine capacities is currently known as free enterprise financial matters or noninterventionism.

In noticing out of the blue the importance of the division of work and expressing the speculation that a ware’s esteem relates to its work input, Smith foreseen the compositions of Karl Marx. Like Marx’s Das Capital and Machiavelli’s The Prince, his extraordinary book denoted the unfolding of another chronicled age. Read More And Buy Now.

14.Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis

by Kenneth N. Waltz (Author)

Man, the State, and War is a 1959 book on international relations by realist academic Kenneth Waltz. The book is influential within the international relations theory field for establishing the three images of analysis used to explain the conflict in the international system.

Someone has said that ASKING who won a given war is like asking who won the San Francisco earthquake. There is no victory in wars, but only varying degrees of defeat is a proposition that has gained increasing acceptance in the twentieth century. But are wars also akin to earth-quakes in being natural occurrences whose control or elimination is beyond the wit of man? Few would admit that they are, yet attempts to eliminate war, however nobly inspired and assiduously pursued, have brought little more than fleeting moments of peace among states. There is an apparent disproportion between effort and product, be-tween desire, and result. The peace wish, we are told, runs strong and deep among the Russian people; and we are convinced that the same can be said of Americans. From these statements, there is some comfort to be derived, but in light of history and current events, it is difficult to believe that the wish will father the condition desired. Read More And Buy Now.

15.The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations

Author by Gabriel Abraham Almond, Dr. Sidney Verba (Contributor)

Presenting a major intellectual development in the history of the social sciences, Almond and Verba have updated their classical five-nation study of comparative politics. Looking back over twenty-five years since the study’s conception, Almond and Verba address many important questions—brought out by top scholars of the field- to the validity of the inferences drawn from their findings and the “soundness” of their study. Also, they recognize the many substantial changes in political culture that have transpired in the five nations studied in England. Germany, Italy, Mexico, and the United States over the past two decades. The contributing authors to this book are among the best in the field, making this book consistent with the scholarly precedent outlined in the first volume, The Civic Culture.

“Few books in political science of the last three of four decades have had the impact and continuing power of The Civic Culture, and no other authors have had the self-confidence to commission such a powerful and insightful set of critiques as The Civic Culture Revisited.” —Robert Putnam. Stanford Behavioral Institute
“The Civic Culture (and The Civic Culture Revisited remain the best study of the comparative political culture in our time.” —Aaron Wildaysky, University of California. Berkeley

16.Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems (American Politics and Political Economy Series)

Author by Thomas Ferguson

“To discover who rules, follow the gold.” This is the argument of the Golden Rule, provocative, pungent history of modern American politics. Although the role big money plays in defining political outcomes has long been obvious to ordinary Americans, most pundits and scholars have virtually dismissed this assumption. Even in light of skyrocketing campaign costs, the belief that major financial interests primarily determine whom parties nominate and where they stand on issues has been ignored by most political scientists. Offering evidence ranging from the nineteenth century to the 1994 midterm elections, Golden Rule shows that voters are “right on the money.”

THOMAS FERGUSON is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and coauthor of Right-Turn: The Decline of the Democrats and the Future of Politics Buy Now and Read More