Politics

Politics
by Aristotle
Published in the 4th century BC
411 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 4/5


Politics, by Aristotle, is a series of recommendations made by Aristotle about how a city should be run. His prescriptions range from political to familial, with recommendations ranging from how to organize states to how to run and manage households. He also includes many chapters giving recommendations about how to raise children.


This book formed the intellectual cornerstone of Western civilization for the greater part of two millennia. Many later political thinkers based their ideas and own recommendations on Aristotle’s prescriptions. His text became something more than a political manifesto - over time it evolved into a divine prescription, and his work was treated as an infallible and immutable religious text.


Aristotle was definitely a genius, although I am still perplexed as to why his work had such enduring power. Many of his recommendations are not particularly interesting, and strike me as being very specific to city states rather than timeless. I greatly enjoyed reading this book as a historical text by  which I gleamed insight into the minds and politics of the Greek city states.


This is definitely one of the must read books of Western civilization, although I didn’t find its contents to be nearly as mind or earth shattering as Plato’s Republic.