Contemporary Political Ideologies

With this in mind, Lyman Tower Sargent, Professor of Political Science at the University of MissouriSt. Louis, has written a new update to his 1969 version of Contemporary Political Ideologies. The text itself is a broad introduction to a set of modern methods, organized in a dialectical, or argumentative weaving of different ideas. Thus, one of the major strengths of the book is its ability to give the reader a chance to sort through a variety of arguments and information, and to come to a coherent, considered, opinion about a wide variety of issues.

Sargent comes well qualified for this venture. Besides his position at the University of Missouri, he has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Exeter, England, and an Academic Visitor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Besides the work under review, Sargent is the author or coauthor of at least six other books on political theory and ideologies, as well as a number of scholarly articles on political theory.

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straction" that belongs in a book or theoretical course, but something that can be used to actually explain current events. For example, in his treatment of nationalism, Sargent views the Middle East as the center of the "greatest complexity of nationalisms" (p. 29). In two short paragraphs, Sargent shows that the political process of national identity is inexorably tied to religion, culture, and history, and that any solution to nationalistic problems must take all three components into its proposal. To this reader, this material has particular relevance when viewed in relation to the 1990 Crisis in the Gulf, and the complex relations between Iran, Iraq, the Arab countries, Israel, and the United States. Within his overview of democracy, however, Sargent seems to turn more toward the ideal and optimistic rather than the pragmatic. This, frankly, is somewhat surprising, since the bulk of the book strays away from overly complimentary references to ideological bias. Within the section on democracy, Sargent is quick to point out that there is a direct challenge to adequate representation within society, but does not assert a direct argument as to the reasons for the decline of citizen participation in many parts of the world
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Approximate Word count = 1568
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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