Abstract

This excellent treatment of Hegel’s political philosophy sympathetically relates Hegel’s theory of the state to contemporary debates in political science. Smith has reworked material from previous studies to accomplish two difficult tasks gracefully. First, he introduces Hegel’s political philosophy to intelligent readers who are assumed to be unfamiliar with Hegel. This requires extended treatments of the philosophical context of Hegel’s views and of Hegel’s intellectual development. Second, he derives specific political views from Hegel and brings them to bear on current issues in political science.