Political thought in perspective

The history of political thought is usually studied in one of two ways:
either by reading the great writers themselves or by reading about them.
The advantage of the first method is obvious: there is no substitute for
the original words and thoughts of the great political writers, any more
than an expository and interpretative summary of the contents of Hamlet
can ever substitute for the original text. Yet the second method the his-
torical account and analysis of political ideas—has its advantage, too: it
provides commentary and interpretation of ideas which are often difficult
to grasp without the helping hand of the guide and critic.
This book tries to combine the advantages of both methods by pre-
senting the high points of the evolution of political ideas from Plato to
the present as seen by distinguished thinkers and statesmen themselves.
Writing about each other, the world's leading political philosophers, states-
men, and scholars generally write with a verve and freshness that are not
always present in their writing about more abstract issues of political
theory. Moreover, in each selection the writer reveals as much about him-
self as about the man he comments upon. The kinship of greatness be-
tween author and subject adds, is hoped, a new dimension of intimacy
and understanding to the study of political ideas. In addition to critical
commentaries of distinguished thinkers on each other, I have included
commentaries on great political philosophers by some of the world's
renowned statesmen, such as Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Masaryk, Lenin,
Churchill, and Nehru. Vital political ideas are thus presented in the
double mirror of those who either as creative political philosophers formu-
lated them, or as leaders of peoples gave living reality to them.
It was not always possible to get the ideal pair, such as this volume
contains in the case of Aristotle or Jefferson on Plato, Russell on Locke,
Paine or Woodrow Wilson on Burke, Mill on Bentham, Acton on Mill,
Lenin or Masaryk on Marx, and Churchill on Lenin. Not all writers in-
cluded are of equal importance as creative thinkers or statesmen, and par-
ticularly in the case of the more recent writers,