Iroquois and the Athenians - by Brian Seitz & Thomas Thorp (Hardcover)

About the Book

An original work of political theory, The Iroquois and the Athenians relocates the problem of political foundations and origins, removing it from the dead logic of the social contract and grafting it onto a juxtaposed representation of the historical practices of the pre-conta...

Book Synopsis

An original work of political theory, The Iroquois and the Athenians relocates the problem of political foundations and origins, removing it from the dead logic of the social contract and grafting it onto a juxtaposed representation of the historical practices of the pre-contact Iroquois and the pre-classical Greeks.

Review Quotes

"This is a work as grand in its scope, as bold in its ambitions, and as successful in its execution as Hardt and Negri's Empire or Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus. But in the end there is nothing quite like Brian Seitz and Thomas Thorp's The Iroquois and the Athenians. It is a unique experiment in comparative politology that reads the social, political, and economic organization of the Iroquois in North America against the backdrop of ancient Greek society. Along the way, all our assumptions about the nature of myth, mourning, law, language, kinship, war, political authority, rights, sexual difference, private property, and political foundations get called into question. Seitz and Thorp deploy all the resources of contemporary European Philosophy to create a distinctly 'American' politology."

About the Author

Brian Seitz is professor of philosophy at Babson College. He is author of The Trace of Political Representation, and coeditor (with Ron Scapp) of Living with Class: Philosophy Reflections on Identity and Material Culture; Fashion Statements: On Style, Appearance, and Reality; Etiquette: Reflections on Contemporary Comportment; and Eating Culture.

Thomas Thorp is professor of philosophy at Saint Xavier University in Chicago. He is founding director of Greater Yellowstone College.