The new edition of this bestselling text continues to provide an accessible overview of the 21st century's major political ideologies, their origins, and their development. In addition to examining the major "isms"-liberalism, conservatism, socialism, and fascism-the book explores the history, structure, supporting arguments, and internal complexities of these and recently emerging ideologies.
The text outlines a framework defining each ideology in terms of the four functions ideologies perform-explanation, evaluation, orientation, and action-allowing students to compare, contrast, and analyze the various ideologies. In addition, the book also shows how each ideology interprets "democracy" (which the authors characterize as an ideal rather than an ideology) and "freedom." In examining the latter notion, the authors analyze each ideology's view of freedom in terms of agent, obstacle, and goal.