Product Description

This revised and updated 4th edition of the leading text on political ideologies contains a new chapter on multiculturalism, consideration of the changing nature of ideological discourse, including the transition from 'traditional' to 'new' ideologies, and coverage of the impact on the major ideological traditions of developments such as globalization and the 'war on terror'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42139 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

About the Author
ANDREW HEYWOOD is Director of Studies at Croydon College, UK. He is author of Political Theory, Politics and Key Concepts in Politics. He is an A-Level Chief Examiner in Government and Politics.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic, accessible introduction to the subject
Up front I should note that I am a layman reader in this subject matter, I have no background or education in Politics. I purchased this book as a result of a long held frustration with my inability to accurately describe my belief system. Having now read this I now feel fully kitted up to accurately and concisely describe my own ideology, and those of people around me. Furthermore, it has a level of insight which has allowed me to begin to understand the thought process / motivation of those around me who believe differently to myself. I cannot recommend the contents enough. In terms of presentation, the book is broken down by ideology, working in roughly chronological order (from the early ideologies such as Liberalism, through to the modern beliefs such as Feminism and Ecologism). Throughout the book Heywood offers simple explanations of all specialist terms used, and when discussing key political and social concepts, compares and contrasts the views held in the larger ideological groups. For a first time reader, this book offers everything you need to take that first step into the ideological side of politics.

Great textbook; shame about the binding.
I do A Level politics and this book has been hugely helpful for the course, infact I'd probably go as far as to say it's one of the best textbooks I've ever had to use. It gives brilliant descrptions of the ideologies and the bibliography section reads like a reccommended reading list for anyone interested in politics.

Our class was given either a copy of the Fourth or Third edition and I ended up buying my own copy of the Third because the Fourth has two major problems. Firstly it doesn't have the brilliant glossary which the third edition had and secondly it falls apart once it's been in and out of your bag, carried around and read. Entire sections fall out and even though the Third edition is several years old they are still in tip-top shape, the fourth editions after under a year of use are covered in sello-tape and glue.

My advice? Buy the book but buy the Third edition second hand.

Beginners Please


Andrew Heywood has written a book for beginners in political studies and, as such, displays all the strengths and weakness associated with his target audience. Its strength is that identifies specific political modes of thought liberalism, conservatism, socialism, marxism, nationalism, anarchism, fascism, feminism and ecologism and explains their perspectives on a variety of ideas such as human nature, the state and so forth, in ideological terms. In addition he makes a broad sweep of a range of ideas which have circulated primarily since the eighteenth century.

Its weakness is that ideology, inasmuch as ideology exists, is rarely stated in simple, compact ideas. Like so many political concepts ideology was born in the midst of the French Revolution and developed through European philosophy as the intellectual justification of the exercise or seizure of power. In practice it is little more than a rationalisation of the former. Socialism, for example, became so meaningless as a word during the twentieth century that it was used to describe Attlee's Britain and Stalin's Russia in the same breath, despite the propagandists of the latter having described the former as social fascists in the pre-war period.

Similarly, Heywood makes the widespread mistake (which is repeated on Wikipedia) of regarding Nazism as a subgroup of Fascism. Fascism was a peculiarly Italian form of government whose nearest political expression was the corporate state of Franco's Spain and more recently in South America. Nazism was a racial ideology which shared authoritarian features with Fascistic regimes but the identification of Fascism and Nazism as being the same movement is down to Soviet propaganda in the build up to the Second World War not to any objective identification. Nowadays it is a meaningless term of abuse which describes any exercise of power.

Fringe movements such as feminism, the belief that pro-women choices ( all women short lists, for example) are relevant to politics created the myths of patriarchy at the expense of the reality of sexual differentiation and understanding. In politics, as in life, it's not what you know but who you know that matters. In the end feminism splintered with Carmen Paglia attacking the idea of women as victims while Kate Millett appeared to advocate erotic relationships between adults and children.

The current fashionable ideology appears to be ecologism, saving the world from the impact of globalisation. There is little to suggest that it is any more than the ideological expression of the politically powerless seeking to gain political advantage. in between the truth is inevitably lost and the bill is picked up by later generations.

However, for all its strengths and weaknesses Heywood's book serves as a very useful place to start - if not end - the study of political ideologies. My review is of the third edition which does have a good bibliography and index.