Contemporary Western Political Thought

Author: Zhang Lijun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: This book introduces six influential and representative ideological trends, including liberalism, conservatism, social democracy, Western Marxism, green peace movement, and feminism. When introducing these six political ideologies, it adopts a combination of vertical and horizontal approaches, integrating historical and logical perspectives, avoiding either complete negation or complete affirmation of Western political ideologies. Striving to stand at the height of historical materialism, it observes and explains the reality, based on the critiques of Western politics by Marx, Engels, and Lenin, making realistic evaluations of the strengths and limitations of contemporary Western political ideologies. Vertically, the book clearly traces the origins of these political ideologies and, starting from there, briefly introduces their development and theoretical characteristics. Horizontally, it vividly reveals the real contradictions and development trends of contemporary capitalist countries by introducing the views of contemporary representatives of these ideologies, highlighting the different focuses of critique and defense of various political ideologies towards contemporary capitalism. This enables students of contemporary Western political ideologies to not only understand the historical context of these ideologies but also grasp their new developments.