Description: Considers the problems of sovereignty through the work of Rousseau, Arendt, Foucault, Agamben, and Derrida.
Brief description: Peter Gratton is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the coeditor (with John Panteleimon Manoussakis) of Traversing the Imaginary: Richard Kearney and the Postmodern Challenge.
Review Quotes:
"Gratton's methodological rigour in reconstructing each pathway is a great strength of the book ... This is a very pedagogical book, full of lessons in the way it treats each of the authors under discussion. It is therefore a good graduate student text, and for each discussed author the book makes significant contributions to current scholarship." -- Philosophy in Review
"Drawing on eminent thinkers including Boulainvilliers, Rousseau, Arendt, Foucault, Agamben, and Derrida, Gratton ... provides a novel synthesis. He concludes that for those who believe in freedom and democracy, questioning rather than resigning to sovereignty as it presents itself is essential. The book reflects some of Gratton's earlier published work and further attests to his facility with French political thought ... Gratton's discussion overall is penetrable and stimulating." -- CHOICE