Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Prince ; Discourses (selections) / Niccoláo Machiavelli -- Leviathan (selections) / Thomas Hobbes -- Theologico-political treatise (chaps. XVI, XX) / Baruch Spinoza -- Second treatise of government ; Letter concerning toleration / John Locke -- The spirit of the laws (selections) / Montesquieu -- Discourse on the origin of inequality ; Of the social contract / Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- An enquiry concerning the principles of morals (sec. III) ; "Of parties in general" ; "Of the original contract" ; "Of the origin of government" / David Hume -- The theory of moral sentiments (pt. IV) ; The wealth of nations (selections) / Adam Smith -- On the old saw : that may be right in theory but it won't work in practice (pts. II, III) ; Perpetual peace / Immanuel Kant -- The Declaration of Independence -- The Constitution of the United States -- The Federalist papers (selections) -- The declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen -- Reflections on the revolution in France (selections) / Edmund Burke -- Principles of legislation (selections) / Jeremy Bentham -- Democracy in America (Vol. I: chaps 6,7) / Alexis de Tocqueville.

Philosophy of right (Introduction; Third part) / Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel -- Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844 (selections) ; The German ideology (selections) ; Manifesto of the Communist party ; A contribution to the critique of political economy (preface) ; Value, price and profit (chaps. VI-XI) ; Socialism : Utopian and scientific / Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels -- On liberty ; Considerations on representative government (chap. 3) ; The subjection of women (chap. 1) / John Stuart Mill.