Political Thought, History of

Abstract

The study of past ideas and writings concerning politics has been undertaken not just by historians, but by scholars from a variety of different disciplinary perspectives. This article focuses primarily on historical approaches to the study of past thinking about politics. In particular, three approaches that have been especially influential in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are explored in detail: the Straussian approach initiated by Leo Strauss; the Cambridge School interpretation that was developed by J.G.A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner; and Begriffsgeschichte or Conceptual History that was pioneered by Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck.