Michael Walzer

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Michael Walzer (3 March 1935 - ) is a political theorist and philosopher of society, politics, and ethics currently working as a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He has written on a wide range of topics, including just and unjust wars, nationalism, ethnicity, economic justice, criticism, radicalism, tolerance, and political obligation. Outside of his academic work he acts as editor-in-chief of Dissent, an American left-wing magazine and is a contributing editor to The New Republic. He is also on the Editorial Board of the academic journal Philosophy & Public Affairs. To date he has written twenty-seven books and has published over three hundred articles, essays, and book reviews. He is a member of several philosophical organizations including the American Philosophical Society.

Walzer is usually identified as one of the leading proponents of the "Communitarian" position in political philosophy, along with Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel. Like Sandel and MacIntyre, Walzer is not completely comfortable with this label. He has, however, long argued that political philosophy must be grounded in the traditions and culture of particular societies and opposed what he sees to be excessive abstraction in political theory.

1 Education
2 Employment
3 Published works
4 See also
5 Sources and external links

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Education

In 1956 Walzer graduated Summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a B.A. in History. He then studied at the University of Cambridge on a Fulbright Fellowship (1956-1957) and completed his doctoral work at Harvard, earning his Ph.D. in Political Science and History from the Kennedy School of Government in 1961.

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Employment

Walzer was first employed as a professor in 1962 by Princeton University. He stayed there until 1966 when he moved to Harvard. He taught at Harvard until 1980 when he became a Permanent Faculty Member in the School of Social Science at the IAS.

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Published works

The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Harvard University Press, 1965) ISBN 0674767861
Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War and Citizenship (Harvard University Press, 1970) ISBN 0674630254
Political Action (Quadrangle Books, 1971) ISBN 0812901738
Regicide and Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1974) ISBN 0231082592
Just and Unjust Wars (Basic Books, 1977, second edition, 1992, third edition, 2000) ISBN 0465037054
Radical Principles (Basic Books, 1977) ISBN 0465068243
Spheres of Justice (Basic Books, 1983) ISBN 0465081894
Exodus and Revolution (Basic Books, 1985) ISBN 0465021646
Interpretation and Social Criticism (Harvard University Press, 1987) ISBN 0674459717
The Company of Critics (Basic Books, 1988) ISBN 0465013317
Civil Society and American Democracy (Rotbuch Verlag, 1992, in German) ISBN 3596130778
What It Means to Be an American (Marsilio Publishers, 1992) ISBN 1568860250
Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (Notre Dame Press, 1994) ISBN 0268018979
Pluralism, Justice and Equality, with David Miller (Oxford University Press, 1995) ISBN 0198280084
Toward a Global Civil Society (Berghahn Books, 1995) ISBN 1571810544
On Toleration (Yale University Press, 1997) ISBN 0268018979
Arguments from the Left (Atlas, 1997, in Swedish)
Pluralism and Democracy (Editions Esprit, 1997, in French) ISBN 2909210197
Reason, Politics, and Passion (Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1999, in German) ISBN 3596144396
The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. I Authority, co-edited, with Menachem Lorberbaum, Noam Zohar, and Yair Lorberbaum (Yale University Press, 2000) ISBN 0300094280
Exilic Politics in the Hebrew Bible (Mohr Siebeck, 2001, in German) ISBN 3161475437
War, Politics, and Morality (Ediciones Paidos, 2001, in Spanish) ISBN 8449311675
Arguing About War (Yale University Press, 2004) ISBN 0300103654
Politics and Passion: Toward A More Egalitarian Liberalism (Yale University Press, 2004) ISBN 030010328X