Book Review Assignment

Here are the instructions for the book review assignment. This should be about six pages in length (double spaced, 10-12 point font, normal margins, no tricks). A page or so shorter or a couple pages longer isn't a problem at all; the key is to answer the following questions in your essay.

If the bookstore is out of some or all of them, here are amazon links:

The Racial Contract, Charles Mills
The Sexual Contract, Carole Pateman
Seeing Like a State, James Scott
Liberalism and Empire, Uday Mehta

1) What political theorist or theorists is the author of this book engaging, indirectly or directly?

2) What is the principle criticism of the political theorist(s) who are engaged by this author?

3) How successful is are these criticisms?

4) How might the political theorist in question respond to these charges?

5) How does the criticism from the book under review change your view on the value of the political theory in question? Is this political theorist still relevant to our world? Why or why not?

Essentially, I'm asking you to imagine a discussion between the author of the book you're reviewing and a political theorist from this course. Mills and Pateman discuss several of the social contract theorists at great length; and and Mehta spends a great deal of time discussing Mill and Burke. Scott mentions Burke once or twice, but you'll have to do a bit more mental work to figure out which theorist or theorists Scott is in conversation with.

It is important to this assignment to be fair to both the author of the book and the theorist under criticism. Try to write an integrated paper that accomplishes all these tasks in essay form. Have fun, be creative, and bounce ideas off of me any time! If you have questions for me about this assignment, let me know and I'll try to answer them on the blog so everyone can have the benefit of an answer. These are all wonderful books, so don't worry too much about choosing the right one.

If you choose Scott's book, it is not necessary to read and discuss all chapters in parts II and III (you should read all of parts I and IV, and at least one chapter each from II and III carefully). The other three books are shorter and should be read in their entirety.