Readings and Questions

Selected sessions below include questions on the reading material.

SES # TOPICS READINGS READING QUESTIONS
1 Introduction: Paradigms and Social science

Buy at Amazon Kuhn, Thomas. Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780226458083. [Preview with Google Books]

Questions (PDF)
2 Theories of the Liberal State and Politics

Buy at Amazon Locke, John. Chapters 1-5, and 7-9 in Second Treatise on Civil Government. The Editorium, 2010. ISBN: 9781434103055. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Berlin, Isaiah. "Two Concepts of Liberty." In Four Essays on Liberty. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780192810342.

Federalist Paper #10

Recommended

Condorcet. "Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind: Tenth Epoch." Translated by Keith Michael Baker in Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Summer 2004): 65-82.

Questions (PDF)
3 Neo-Classical Theories of the Economies

Buy at Amazon Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982, pp. 1-55, 108-37, and 161-90. ISBN: 9780226264219. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Becker, Gary. Chapters 1, 8, 12, and 13 in The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990. [Preview on Google Books]

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Dobb, Maurice. Theories of Value and Distribution since Adam Smith: Ideology and Economic Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975. ISBN: 9780521099363. [Preview on Google Books]

Questions (PDF)
4 Liberal and Neo-Classical Approaches

Buy at Amazon Olson, Mancur. Chapters 1-4 in The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Second printing with new preface and appendix (Harvard Economic Studies). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. ISBN: 9780674537514. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Hayek, Frederich. Chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5 in Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780226320939. [Preview with Google Books]

Recommended

Harsanyi, John. "Rational-Choice Models of Political Behavior vs. Functionalist and Conformist Theories." World Politics XXI (October 1968 - June 1969): 513-37.

Questions (PDF)
5 Marxist Politics

Buy at Amazon Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. "The Communist Manifesto." In The Marx-Engels Reader (Second Edition). Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1978, pp. 469-500. ISBN: 9780393090406.

Buy at Amazon ———. Preface to a "Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy." In The Marx-Engels Reader (Second Edition). Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1978, pp. 3-6. ISBN: 9780393090406.

Buy at Amazon Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. Translated by D. D. L. CreateSpace, 2011. ISBN: 9781461072270. (Read in entirety, NOT in Tucker version).

Recommended

Buy at Amazon Gramsci, Antonio. Selections From the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. International Publishers Co, 1971, pp. 1-276. ISBN: 9780717803972.

Questions (PDF)
6 Marxist Economics and Value Theory Buy at Amazon Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. "Capital." In The Marx-Engels Reader (Second Edition). Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1978, pp. 294-465. ISBN: 9780393090406.

Buy at Amazon Howard, M. C., and J. E. King. The Political Economy of Marx. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1988, pp. 1-180. ISBN: 9780814734537. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Rubin, I. I. Introduction and chapters 1, 8, and 18 in Essays on Marx's Theory of Value. HarperCollins India, 2007. ISBN: 9780919618183. [Preview with Google Books]

 
7 Macroeconomics and Theories of Growth

Buy at Amazon Keynes, J. M. Chapters 1-3, 8-13, and 24 in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2010. ISBN: 9781169831995. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon ———. "The Great Slump of 1930," "Economy," and "The End of Laissez-Laissez-Faire." In Essays in Persuasion. pp. 126-50, 126-50, and 272-95. ISBN: 9781463525354.

Buy at Amazon Akerlof, George A., and Robert J. Shiller. Preface, and chapters in 1-4, 6, and 7 in Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism (New in Paper). Princeton University Press, 2010. [Preview with Google Books]

 
8 Sociological Theories of Capitalism

Buy at Amazon Alfred Stepan. Chapters 1 and 2 in The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective. Princeton University Press, 1978. ISBN: 9780691021799.

Buy at Amazon Avery Dulles. Chapters 1-3 in Models of the Church. DoubleDay, 1974.

 
9 Sociological Theories of Capitalism (cont.)

Buy at Amazon Polanyi, Karl. Chapters 3-14 in The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780807056431.

Questions (PDF)
10 Cultural Theories of Capitalism

Buy at Amazon Weber, Max. Introduction and chapters 1-3, and 5 in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. CreateSpace, 2010. ISBN: 9781456328634. [Preview with Google Books]

Questions (PDF)
Analyzing Groups in Society: New Paradigms?
11 Corporatism

Buy at Amazon Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. "Conclusion: The Force of Critique." In The New Spirit of Capitalism. Verso, 2007, pp. 485-524. ISBN: 9781844671656. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008, pp. 81-163. ISBN: 9780061561610.

 
12 Institutionalism

Buy at Amazon North, Douglas. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780521397346. [Preview with Google Books]

Recommended

Immergut, Ellen M. "The Theoretical Core of the New Institutionalism." Politics and Society 8, no. 1 (March 1998): 5-34.

 
13 New Institutionalism

Buy at Amazon Hall, Peter, and David Soskice. Varieties of Capitalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 1-68. ISBN: 9780199247752.