Bøker av Georgios Varouxakis

A comprehensive intellectual history of the idea of the WestHow did ';the West' come to be used as a collective self-designation signaling political and cultural commonality? When did ';Westerners' begin to refer to themselves in this way? Was the idea handed down from the ancient Greeks, or coined by nineteenth-century imperialists? Neither, writes Georgios Varouxakis in The West, his ambitious and fascinating genealogy of the idea. ';The West' was not used by Plato, Cicero, Locke, Mill, or other canonized figures of what we today call the Western tradition. It was not first wielded by empire-builders. It was, Varouxakis shows, decisively promoted in the 1840s by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (whose political project, incidentally, was passionately anti-imperialist). The need for the use of the term';the West' emerged to avoid the confusing or unwanted consequences of the use of ';Europe.' The two overlapped, but were not identical, with the West used to exclude certain ';others' within Europe as well as to include the Americas.After examining the origins, Varouxakis traces the many and often surprising changes in the ways in which the West has been understood, and the different intentions and repercussions related to a series of these contested definitions. While other theories of the West consider only particular aspects of the concept and its history (if only in order to take aim at its reputation), Varouxakis's analysis offers a comprehensive, multilayered account that reaches to the present day, exploring the multiplicity of current and prospective meanings. He concludes with an examination of how, since 2022, definitions and membership in the West are being reworked to include Ukraine, as the evolution and redefinition continue.

While the utterances on France of several other figures are also examined, the main focus is on Walter Bagehot, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, Lord Acton, Thomas Carlyle, Nassau William Senior, James Fitzjames Stephen, William Rathbone Greg, Thomas Babington Macaulay, John Morley, and Frederic Harrison.

Provides introduction to French society and institutions with a particular focus on political issues. This work covers basic information, concepts and facts, while giving students a fundamental understanding of political analysis. It analyses country's political and institutional traditions, distinct forms of nationalism and citizenship, and more.

John Stuart Mill's thought has been central in works discussing the relationship between liberalism and nationality and in shaping liberal attitudes towards nationality. This book provides a study of Mill's ideas and clarifies some of the misconceptions surrounding his writings on nationalism.