Newell's book provides distinctively insightful readings of the dialogues under consideration. His book abounds with astute political, philosophical, and especially psychological observations.
The Review of Politics
A penetrating study in Platonic political philosophy and a sharply stimulating interpretation of major Platonic dialogues.
Thomas Pangle, University of Toronto Ruling Passion is a masterful reading of Plato, and it ... Read moreis also the most complex and nuanced analysis in our day of political ambition and the theoretical challenges it raises. Through the character of Callicles in the Gorgias Newell captures both the idealism and the selfishness intertwined in political ambition. Their deep connection, he shows, sheds a harsh but revealing light on both eros in the Symposium and the tripartite soul in the Republic. This portrayal of "the problem of Callicles" deserves to haunt all thinking on these topics for the next decade or so.
Henry Higuera Novices and experts alike can learn much from Newell's original and deeply insightful analysis. As Socrates dons the lovely disguise of Diotima or parades the beautiful Images of Philosophy before his interlocutors to appeal to their desire for wholeness, so does Newell's masterly account of a philosophically guided statemanship appeal to our desire to know what such a way of life might truly entail.
Perspectives on Political Science
We have here one of the best books on Plato to have appeared in recent years.
Stanley Rosen, University of Southern California
American Political Science Review
Newell has written an excellent interpretive study. Newell's lucid prose is an intellectual delight to read. His own insightful phrases and rich vocabulary bear witness to the dramatic nuances of the dialugues at every stage.
Religious Studies Review
Newell has a clear sense of his questions and his structure.
Canadian Journal of Political Science
Newell's interpretations of the well-known text are clearly spelled out and thought-provoking. What stand out in Newell's pages are fresh readings of the dialogues. One should be greatful for a book that pushes us to the limits of Plato's texts.
Philosophy in Review
Newell's emphasis on the connections between the three dialogues and his deep excavation of the meaning and control of primordial and transcendental longing will reward the careful and patient reader.
Political Theory
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