"The investigative premise of intellectual history is that ideas do not develop in isolation from the thinkers who conceptualize and apply those ideas."
This Political History studies the evolution and impact of political ideas, theories, and concepts such as democracy, socialism, communism, and nationalism.
Classical Political Thought: The study of political thought dating back to ancient Greece and Rome, including thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.
Medieval Political Thought: The study of political thought in the Middle Ages, including thinkers like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Dante Alighieri.
Renaissance and Early Modern Political Thought: The study of political thought from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, including thinkers like Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.
American Political Thought: The study of political thought in the United States, including thinkers like Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln.
Feminist Political Thought: The study of political thought from a feminist perspective, including thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, and bell hooks.
Postcolonial Political Thought: The study of political thought from a postcolonial perspective, including thinkers like Frantz Fanon and Edward Said.
Critical Race Theory: The study of race and racism in politics and society, including thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, and Kimberlé Crenshaw.
Marxist Political Thought: The study of political thought from a Marxist perspective, including thinkers like Marx, Engels, and Gramsci.
Liberal Political Thought: The study of political thought from a liberal perspective, including thinkers like John Stuart Mill, Isaiah Berlin, and Rawls.
Conservatism: The study of political thought from a conservative perspective, including thinkers like Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott, and Russell Kirk.
Political Economy: The study of the relationship between politics and economics, including thinkers like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Hayek.
International Relations: The study of politics and power between nations, including thinkers like Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Morgenthau.
Political Philosophy: The study of the fundamental principles of political thought, including thinkers like Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, and Rawls.
Political Anthropology: The study of the relationship between politics and culture, including thinkers like Clifford Geertz and Michel Foucault.
Political Theology: The study of the relationship between religion and politics, including thinkers like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Carl Schmitt.
Classical Political Theory: This type of political theory originated in ancient Greece, which represents the earliest form of political thought. The classics, such as Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides, have profoundly impacted modern political philosophy.
Modern Political Theory: Modern political theory originated after the Renaissance, and influential thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau developed distinct ideas on the nature of government, social contracts, individual rights, and the relationship between state and society.
Contemporary Political Theory: This type of political theory emerged in the post-World War II era and includes conceptual frameworks and critical perspectives such as post-modernism, liberalism, and feminism that shape the dominant contemporary discourses within politics.
Comparative Political Theory: As the name suggests, this type of intellectual history approaches politics from a cross-cultural perspective. It aims to compare and contrast the political thought of different cultures, societies, and civilizations from around the world, such as Confucian political thought, Islamic political thought, or Indian political thought.
Marxist Political Theory: Marxist political theory seeks to explore the impact of social and economic structures on political thought. The Marxist approach emphasizes the role of economic power relations in shaping political relations and claims that politics is nothing but a struggle for power between different classes that hold opposing economic interests.
Feminist Political Theory: Feminist political theory focuses on the relationship between gender, power, and politics. It critiques the male-dominated political systems, highlighting the gender-based inequities and seeking to reconstruct concepts of power and representation to include the diverse perspectives of all genders.
Critical Race Theory: Critical race theory examines the relationship between race, power, and politics. It critically examines the impact of race in the formation of political thought and highlights the historical and contemporary struggles of marginalized communities.
Postcolonial Political Theory: Postcolonial political theory emerges in the aftermath of colonialism and seeks to deconstruct colonial power structures that continue to shape global politics. It critiques the Eurocentric view of politics and emphasizes the importance of pluralism and diversity in shaping political thought.
Cultural Political Theory: This type of intellectual history aims to highlight the importance of cultural practices, identities, and values in shaping political thought. It recognizes that politics cannot be separated from culture and that cultural differences must be acknowledged in any political system.
Environmental Political Theory: Environmental political theory explores the relationships between political thought and environmental politics, emphasizing the importance of climate change, sustainability, and ecology in shaping political decisions.
"(i) as abstract propositions for critical application; and (ii) in concrete terms of culture, life, and history."
"The history of ideas emerged from the European disciplines of Kulturgeschichte (Cultural History) and Geistesgeschichte (Intellectual History)."
"To develop a global intellectual history that shows the parallels and the interrelations in the history of critical thinking in every society."
"The history of reading, and the history of the book, about the material aspects of book production (design, manufacture, distribution) developed from the history of ideas."
"The concerns of intellectual history are the intelligentsia and the critical study of the ideas expressed in the texts produced by intellectuals; therein the difference between intellectual history from other forms of cultural history that study visual and non-verbal forms of evidence."
"The concept of the intellectual as a political citizen of public society dates from the 19th century."
"Anyone who explored his or her thoughts on paper can be the subject of an intellectual history."
"The Cheese and the Worms (1976), Carlo Ginzburg's study of the 16th-century Italian miller Menocchio (1532–1599) and his cosmology, falls within the genre of intellectual history..."
"The Journal of the History of Ideas is one of the flagship journals in intellectual history."