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"In this book John Ehrenberg argues that Donald Trump, as both candidate and president, represents a qualitatively new stage in the evolution of the Republican Party's willingness to exploit American racial tensions. Works on Trump's use of race have tended to be fragmentary or subsidiary to a larger purpose. Ehrenberg concentrates his investigation on Trump's weaponized use of race, contextualized through historical and theoretical details, demonstrating that while Trump draws on previous Republican strategies, he stands apart through his explicit intention to convert the Republican Party into a political instrument of a threatened racial order. The book traces the GOP's approach to racial matters from Goldwater's "constitutional" objection to federal activity in the South to George W. Bush's overtures to black citizens. Ehrenberg examines the role of racial animus in prying loose a significant portion of the Democratic electoral coalition and making possible Trump's overt flirtation with white nationalism. He concludes that the Republican Party will find it difficult to jettison its fifty-year history of embracing and amplifying white racial animus and resentment. White Nationalism and the Republican Party will be of interest to academics and students of American Politics, Voting Behavior, American Party Politics, Race and American Politics, Twentieth Century American History, Political Leadership, Politics of Inequality, Race and Public Policy"--

4. Civil Society and the Rise of "Economic Man"Rights, Law, and Protected Spheres; The Moral Foundations of Civil Society; The Emergence of Bourgeois Civil Society; 5. Civil Society and the State; Civil Society and the Ethical Commonwealth; The "Giant Broom"; The "System of Needs"; The Politics of Social Revolution; 6. Civil Society and Intermediate Organizations; The Aristocratic Republic; Civil Society and Community; The Customs of Civil Society; American Lessons; Part III. Civil Society in Contemporary Life; 7. Civil Society and the Crisis of Communism; Antistatism and Totalitarianism.

A comprehensive discussion and analysis of two and a half millennia of Western political theoryIn the absence of noble public goals, admired leaders, and compelling issues, many warn of a dangerous erosion of civil society, which includes families, religious organizations, and all other NGOs. Are they right? What are the roots and implications of their insistent alarm? How can public life be enriched in a period marked by fraying communities, widespread apathy, and unprecedented levels of contempt for politics? How should we be thinking about civil society? In Civil Society: The Critical History of an Idea, John Ehrenberg analyzes both the usefulness and the limitations of civil society and maps the political and theoretical evolution of the concept and its employment in academic and public discourse. From Aristotle and the Enlightenment philosophers to Black Lives Matter and the Occupy movement, Ehrenberg provides an indispensable analysis of the possibilities of what this increasingly important idea can, and cannot, offer to contemporary political affairs. In this new, second edition Ehrenberg brings the historical overview up to present day, specifically considering how major events such as 9/11, the global financial crisis, economic inequality, and rapidly advancing technologies alter and shape our relationship to contemporary civil society. Civic engagement, political participation, and volunteerism in contemporary life has faded, he argues, and in order to bring civil society--and all its virtues--back to the fore, we need to counter the suffocating inequality that has taken hold in recent years. Thorough and accessible, Civil Society gives a sweeping overview of a foundational part of political life.

Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence. By Frank P. Harvey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 360p. $103.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.The Iraq War initiated by the Bush administration in 2003 was and perhaps continues to be an important episode in world politics, US politics, and the politics of the Middle East. The war also galvanized controversy among public intellectuals and broader publics, and generated strong opposition in many European and Middle Eastern countries. In Explaining the Iraq War, Frank P. Harvey offers an interesting analysis of the war and its causes, and does so in a way that raises broader questions about politics and about the scientific study of politics. We have thus invited a distinguished group of political scientists from a variety of subfields to review the book, both as an account of the Iraq War and as a contribution to political science more generally.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Although V. I. Lenin is viewed as the most important figure in 20th-century Marxism, it is contended that leftist scholars are reluctant to analyze Lenin's contributions to Marxist theory. Simon Clarke's (1998) discussion of the populist origins of Lenin's political thought is perceived as attempting to dissociate Leninism from Marxism by connecting Lenin's philosophy to Georgi Plekhanov's political thought. Clarke's assertion that Plekhanov's thought can be separated from Marxism, accomplished by locating the origins of Plekhanov's notion of dialectical materialism within the thought of L. A. Feuerbach, is strongly rejected. Moreover, it is claimed that Clarke overestimated Plekhanov's influence on Lenin's thought. In addition, Howard Chodos & Colin Hay's (1998) representation of Lenin as a dogmatist with respect to Marxism is questioned. Nevertheless, Chodos & Hay's suggestion that discussions of party organization should involve Leninist thought is supported. 3 References. J. W. Parker

Challenges post-Soviet attacks on Marxist theory, focusing on Karl Marx's notion of civil society, particularly in terms of his expansion of G. W. F. Hegel. Marx grounded Hegel's notion of the individual's moral needs existing in the context of market forces in industrial production. Further, Marx claims that the state is shaped by civil society as opposed to transcending it as Hegel suggested. However, Marx also maintained that the proletariat would abolish civil society to achieve human emancipation; civil society would be democratized & used against the market forces that constitute its base. The dissolution of the base would dissolve the existing power structure, resulting in the well-recognized contradiction of Marxist theory. Nevertheless, it is suggested that Marxist ideas are salient in the modern world where capital accumulates & public life deteriorates. The Left needs to concern itself once again with the extension of democracy into civil society. T. Noland