Description: Elías José Palti argues that the dimension of reality known as the political is not a natural, transhistorical entity. Instead, the horizon of the political arose in the context of a series of changes that affirmed the power of absolute monarchies in seventeenth-century Europe and was successively reconfigured from this period up to the present.
Review Quotes: An Archaeology of the Political is notable not only for its breathtaking scope and its conceptual originality but also for the range of sources used, from political texts to a detailed and sophisticated dialogue with figurative arts, dramatic performance, and even music, and with a good ear for social historical questions thrown in.-- "Hispanic American Historical Review"