A History of Political Thought: Property, Labor, and Commerce from Plato to Piketty

"By organizing the investigation of political philosophy around a core theme, Bercuson does an excellent job of taking complex ideas and rendering them comprehensible for an undergraduate audience."

Robert Glover, Department of Political Science, University of Maine

"Jeffrey Bercuson’s book provides an insightful, engaging, and highly accessible discussion of the views of several important political thinkers about the proper place of economic concerns in our lives as human beings and in the social institutions in which our lives are embedded. The book is aimed primarily at students, and it will be very valuable to them, but scholars will also gain a lot from its distinctive focus."

Joseph H. Carens, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto

"Jeffrey Bercuson’s accessible A History of Political Thought will be especially valuable as a guide through the history of political ideas usable in courses on politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE). While student-friendly histories of specifically economic thought already exist, Bercuson follows questions of exchange, commerce, ownership, and accumulation through the tradition of political thought that begins with Plato and Aristotle. In so doing, he helps students understand later figures such as Keynes, Hayek, and Piketty as contributing to fundamental moral and social debates, not only technical ones."

Jacob T. Levy, Department of Political Science, McGill University