Nature of politics

This is a book about politics as such; not about the politics of this or that country, but the activity itself. I have been teaching a subject called Politics for nearly sixteen years. This is my attempt to make sense of the material I have studied, and the many discussions I have had with students and colleagues. My obligations are so various, and many of them so tenuous, that I find them difficult to express. With a subject like this, one absorbs influences without being fully aware of them. In a sense, all my teachers and colleagues have contributed to this book, including those to whom its statements would be unacceptable. But I am especially aware of the influence of my old friend, the late E. M. Higgins, and of Professor P. H. Partridge, whose conversation and writings have stimulated me ever since we first met in Sydney. I do not wish to suggest that either of these would agree with what they might read here; but I hope they would recognise their influence in parts of it.
My immediate obligations are to my wife, for helping me so often to find time to write in the midst of many distractions, and to Professors Wilfrid Harrison and A. G. Pool, who have criticised my manuscript in detail; I am most grateful to them for the care and attention they have given to it, but they must not be held accountable for its faults. Dr. P. S. Cohen has also helped me. The Leicester University Press has kindly allowed me to use some material from my inaugural lecture, Politicians, which it published in 1958.