Lexington Books
Pages: 188
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-7936-5257-7 • Hardback • October 2022 • $95.00 • (£73.00)
978-1-7936-5258-4 • eBook • October 2022 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Dean Caivano teaches political science and history at Merced College.
Chapter 1: The Ancient Greek Polis: Civic Education, Questioning, and the Staging of the Political
Chapter 2: The Unwritten Law: Perpetual Reconstitution in Saxon Britain
Chapter 3: Politics Without Centralized Government: Political Power and Happiness in Indigenous Societies
Chapter 4: Eruptive Democracy: Challenging the Federal Republic
Chapter 5: Divide the Counties into Wards: A Politics of All
At this critical moment when the West is suffering its gravest legitimation crisis since World War II, Caivano brilliantly discovers a Jefferson whose underappreciated revolutionary ideals place him beyond the stifling constraints of American political thought into the vastness of the cosmos of radical democratic theorists. Caivano shows how Jefferson’s ideas hold the potential of a powerful weapon against the present authoritarian zeitgeist by its open, promising, “politics of all” for this, and future, generations to come.
— Richard Matthews, Lehigh University
Deeply researched and beautifully written, Dean Caivano’s work articulates a novel interpretation of a towering figure of early American thought. A Politics for All makes a significant contribution to the history of political thought and to radical democratic theory.
— Martin Breaugh, York University
Caivano’s unique approach to articulating a critical and alternative theory of democracy based on Thomas Jefferson’s historical works is thought-provoking and timely in this era of democratic upheaval and uncertainty, especially in the U.S.. His treatment of important strands of political thought, and the way he re-imagines the idea of politics for all, invites readers to re-think their notions of democracy in a historical, yet readable fashion.
— Julian Campisi, University of Toronto-Scarborough