Power over People:
Classical and Modern Political Theory
(16 lectures, 45 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Dennis Dalton
Barnard College/Columbia University
Ph.D., University of London
Course Lecture Titles
01 The Hindu Vision of Life
02 Thucydides and The Peloponnesian War
03 Law and Rule in Sophocles’s Antigone
04 Socrates and the Socratic Quest
05 Plato—Idealism and Power, Part I
06 Plato—Idealism and Power, Part II
07 Aristotle’s Critique of Plato’s Republic
08 Machiavelli’s Theory of Power Politics
09 Rousseau’s Theory of Human Nature and Society
10 Marx’s Critique of Capitalism and Solution of Communism
11 Freud’s Theory of Human Nature and Civilization
12 Thoreau’s Theory of Civil Disobedience
13 Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor
14 The Idea of Anarchism and the Example of Emma Goldman
15 Hitler’s Use of Power
16 Gandhi's Use of Power
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Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Marx, Gandhi—these exceptional thinkers sculpted, piece by piece, Western political thought from its inception in 5th-century (B.C.) Athens. In so doing, they grappled with such imposing questions as:
What is the correct relationship of the individual to society? What is the connection between individual freedom and social and political authority? Are human beings fundamentally equal or unequal? In 16 in-depth lectures, Professor Dennis Dalton puts the key theories of power formulated by several of history's greatest minds within your reach.
Dr. Dalton traces two distinct schools of political theory, idealism and realism, from their roots in ancient India and Greece through history and, ultimately, to their impact on the 20th century—via the lives and ideas of two charismatic, yet utterly disparate, leaders: Adolph Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi.
