Systematic Politics

Professor Catlin in the course of his career has contributed a

number of major works in the fields of politics: The Science and Method of

Politics (1926), Principles of Politics (1930), History of the

Political Philosophers (1938). These books were considered

"refreshing," "brilliant," "eminently stimulating,"

"genuinely constructive." The trail blazed by their author some thirty

years ago through the forest of "unscientific" political thinking has

since been followed by many others and has widened into one of the main highways of

twentieth-century political though.

The new approach of Professor Catlin was

notable because it distinguished between political philosophy, with its values and

ends, and the scientific study of means; it broke away from older studies and

broadened the concept of Politics, in an Aristotelian sense; it bridged the divorce

between Politics and Sociology; it stressed the quantitative method; it pioneered in

the "power theory of politics," as a key hypothesis in building; and it

developed the theories of equilibrium and of the political market, with its pressure

groups. No political science can be formulated today which ignores his arguments on

these topics.

In this new work, Professor Catlin goes back to cover the

developments of thirty years, integrating the work of his contemporary colleagues

and relating it to the broad tradition of Western philosophy. The range of the

book over time and topics is exhilaratingly wide; its content is often

intellectually intoxicating. Many will appreciate the clear insight and

understanding that the book lends of so much in life-not just in the fields

traditionally assigned to political thinkers; others may be provoked by the

author's strong argumentative sense. No one will deny the vigour and relevance

of the discussion. This summational work is important and practical at a time when

the political endeavours of man are more than ever in need of thoroughly rigorous

logical analysis.