Read more
In this rich, elegant, and fascinating book, Susan McWilliams asks us to recall the Greek theoros -- the theorist-traveller who journeyed to other lands then returned home to describe the institutions and habits that he saw there, and the reasons and principles behind them. Ever since, she
maintains, travel and the imagination of travel has been an important source for thinking about political possibility... With a tour through works about travel, works by traveling theorists, and works imagining theoretically interesting travel -- from Herodotus through Montesquieu and Tocqueville to
DuBois and Baldwin, among others -- she shows how much can be learned from travel and its theorists. She challenges how we have thought about the methods and boundaries of political theory at the same time that she lets us see familiar kinds of theory in new ways. This is a very fine piece of
humanistic scholarship. --Jacob T. Levy, Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory, McGill University
Susan McWilliams succeeds marvelously at making the familiar unfamiliar. Theoretically incisive and poetic, this elegantly written book makes a forceful case for 'traveling back' through the Western tradition. --Anne Norton, Professor of Political Science and Comparative Literature, University of
Pennsylvania
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Points of Departure
- Chapter 1: Instructions for Traveling
- Chapter 2: Reflections on Travel
- Chapter 3: Imagined Travelers
- Conclusion: Homecomings
- Notes
- Index
About the author
Susan McWilliams is Associate Professor of Politics at Pomona College.
Summary
What does it mean to think globally? Susan McWilliams argues that to understand politics in our "new world," we should revisit one of the oldest themes in political theory: travel. Traveling Back uncovers the rich travel-story tradition of political theorizing and shows how it helps to answer today's toughest political questions.
Additional text
In this rich, elegant, and fascinating book, Susan McWilliams asks us to recall the Greek theoros?
