Books like A history of Western political thought by J. S. McClelland

Thomas Hobbes' influential work on social contract and political governance from 1651, addressing the structure of government and society as the way to prevent civil war and chaos.

Hannah Arendt’s classic examination of human activity—labor, work, and action—shows how everyday practice shapes the human condition and serves as a foundation for political freedom.

A comparative study of the American, French, and Russian revolutions.

A two-volume study of political thought from the late thirteenth to the end of the sixteenth century, the decisive period of transition from medieval to modern political theory. The work is intended to be both an introduction to the period for students, and a presentation and justification of a particular approach to the interpretation of historical texts. Volume One deals with the Renaissance, Volume Two with the Age of Reformation. Quentin Skinner gives an outline account of all the principal texts of the period, discussing in turn the chief political writings of Dante, Marsiglio, Bartolus, Machiavelli, Erasmus and more, Luther and Calvin, Bodin and the Calvinist revolutionaries. But he also examines a very large number of lesser writers in order to explain the general social and intellectual context in which these leading theorists worked. He thus presents the history not as a procession of 'classic texts' but are more readily intelligible. He traces by this means the gradual emergence of the vocabulary of modern political thought, and in particular the crucial concept of the State. -- Publisher description

A comprehensive survey of political thought from Plato to Rawls, examining how thinkers confront the opportunities and threats of modern power.

This edition looks at the growing disenchantment with Liberal Democracy in ex-communist countries, continuing nationalist wars, feminism and green ideologies as well as examining such topics as US right-wing thought and Islamic nationalism.