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What are the best novels about politics?

Queried here, I will simplify and make it books, period, but restrict it to fiction, not counting philosophy.  My list of five:

1. Shakespeare's Henriad, a no-brainer at #1, if you count it as more than one book it still should take up as many slots as it needs.  Psychology is primary and stands above politics, and libertinism is by no means unrelated to power.

2. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, vanity, pride, and self-deception are the keys to understanding political behavior, plus Swift shows an understanding of "the rules of the game."

3. Montesquieu, Persian Letters, yikes, have you ever seen that Monty Python skit "Summarize Proust"?

4. Sophocles, Antigone, the claims of the family vs. the claims of the state continue to plague Iraq and many other places.

5. Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, the former is not just a good tale but also a profound comparative study of regimes, the latter is the brutal truths of war.

Interestingly none of these are proper novels.  I read Kafka's The Trial as more about theology than worldly affairs.  As for politics as a profession, the source from The Economist recommends "Primary Colors", C.P. Snow's "The Corridors of Power", and "All the King's Men".

It is less fruitful and less fun to guess at the best novels about business and economics, perhaps because the relevant truths seem banal in a fictional context.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 26, 2007 at 01:10 PM in Political Science | Permalink

Comments

Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes is a masterpiece in telling how power works among revolutionaries and idealists. Can´t be forgotten.

Posted by: Ricardo Amaral at Jan 26, 2007 1:25:03 PM

Masters of Rome Series by Colleen McCullough (6 titles I think) is a wondeful set of novels and certainly the practice of politics is at the center of ancient Rome.


Posted by: Tstone at Jan 26, 2007 1:27:15 PM

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo. About all kinds of justice, be it criminal, social, revenge. A long one to read, though.

Posted by: Juliette at Jan 26, 2007 1:42:41 PM

Primary Colors, by Joe Klein
The movie is great too.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Colors

Posted by: Chris Masse at Jan 26, 2007 1:44:20 PM

I very much think _The Oresteia_ by Aeschylus is the best story about politics ever written.

Posted by: Arr-squared at Jan 26, 2007 2:00:45 PM

Yawning Heights by Aleksandr Zinov'ev.
It´s basically a sociological novel about the political structure and ideology of the Soviet Union.

Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Social commentary at its best.

I would also include many of Pratchetts Discworld novels. They are ful of insights for social scientists.

Posted by: Michael Greinecker at Jan 26, 2007 2:02:31 PM

1984?

Posted by: Luis Zemborain at Jan 26, 2007 2:55:42 PM

The Henry plays aren't a novel, and they weren't originally published as a book, so it seems a little bit of an odd list to start.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at Jan 26, 2007 3:12:06 PM

A less serious possibility - not maybe in The Five Best, but still charming in its way: The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill.

Posted by: Timothy at Jan 26, 2007 3:13:37 PM

"Absalom, Absalom!" by Faulkner. Most of Faulkner is about county-level politics, and "Absalom, Absalom!" gets deep into the conflicts between personal and political morality. And in the U.S., at least, politics and race are hard to separate.

Posted by: DK at Jan 26, 2007 3:27:02 PM

I'd nominate "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.

Posted by: jp at Jan 26, 2007 3:35:05 PM

Hard Times would go on my 10-worst list.

I'm always struck by the conjunction of Gulliver's Travels and Persian Letters (published five years apart).
The edition of the Fable of the Bees that became a sensation (as opposed to the one that no one ever
noticed) came out in 1714. Letters, 1721. Gulliver, 1726. Modest Proposal, 1729. Something satirical
in the water...

Posted by: Jacob T. Levy at Jan 26, 2007 3:59:58 PM

"The Last Hurrah" by Edwin O'Connor (no relation).

Posted by: Edward O'Connor at Jan 26, 2007 4:00:21 PM

This is for the business list, but Richard Powers' Gain has stuck with me as the best modern treatment of the life cycle of a business.

Posted by: mkl at Jan 26, 2007 4:40:55 PM

Forget novels. Iv'e learned more about politics from "The Wire" than any other piece of fiction.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0306414/

Posted by: nelziq at Jan 26, 2007 4:55:35 PM

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead."

According to Amazon.com's book description, "Atlas Shrugged is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club."

Posted by: Scott W at Jan 26, 2007 5:11:40 PM

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren belongs on a list of antistate
novels.

Posted by: Bill Stepp at Jan 26, 2007 5:22:17 PM

I have too many to list! But yes, "All the King's Men" certainly; I'm surprised not to see Trollope (the Barsetshire novels are the supreme chronicle of politics in the sense that we use the phrase "academic politics," only it's the Church of England; the Palliser novels offer wonderful depictions of parliamentary politics, esp. "Phineas Finn" and "Phineas Redux"); there's a great Russian novel by Vassily Aksyonov called "Generations of Winter" that I'd put in the political novel category; Robert Graves's "I, Claudius" is also a classic (and Gore Vidal's nineteenth-century American ones v. good also, Burr and Lincoln and so forth); and depending on how you define politics, perhaps I should close by mentioning Conrad's "The Secret Agent"... (but that gets us into Dostoevsky territory: what about "Demons"?)

Posted by: Jenny Davidson at Jan 26, 2007 6:29:18 PM

1, Yes Dostoevsky "Demons".
2.Nostromo. Joseph Conrad.
3.Fathers and sons. Turguenev.
4.Julius Caesar . Shakespeare.
5.Goetz von Berlinger. Goethe

Posted by: jcm at Jan 26, 2007 8:14:13 PM

"We" by zemiakyn.The inspiration for 1984 and Brave New World

Posted by: jcm at Jan 26, 2007 8:39:26 PM

The reason no one had mentioned Rand is that this was meant to be a list of _good_ novels about politics!

Posted by: Matt at Jan 27, 2007 12:01:14 AM

What about Twain's The GIlded Age?

Posted by: drtaxsacto at Jan 27, 2007 12:11:20 AM

I would nominate George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series.

Posted by: ThaddeusMcMonster at Jan 27, 2007 12:31:39 AM

Advise and Consent - Allen Drury

OTOH, the sequels suck.

Posted by: The Blue-Eyed Sheikh at Jan 27, 2007 3:10:48 AM

I would suggest the novels of George Orwell. Homage to Catalonia about the destructive civil war within the republican movement, and of course his great satires on the abuse of power in Animal Farm and 1984

Posted by: richard at Jan 27, 2007 8:56:00 AM

Two great antiwar novels belong on the list:
The Good Soldier Svejk by Hasek and All Quiet on the Western Front by
Remarque.

Posted by: Bill Stepp at Jan 27, 2007 9:53:13 AM

"Antigone" is a great choice, but "Oedipus the King" would have been just as good. But arr_squared nails it: _The Oresteia_.

I'm struck by the absence of recent or American authors. May I suggest

"Echo House", Ward Just.

"Lincoln", Gore Vidal.

Not that they would make the top 5.

The Henry plays, YES, and why not Julius Caesar, or Richard III?

Finally, if you want to extend 'politics' back before there is a state as such, consider "Njal's Saga".

Posted by: Bill Gardner at Jan 27, 2007 12:36:21 PM

Thucydides wrote I guess a form of history rather than a novel, but still...he uses many novelistic devices (a lot of invented dialogue), and it was before the novel as a genre was born. If you're going to stick the Illiad in there, I would put the Pelopenesian Wars as well.

Posted by: MQ at Jan 27, 2007 11:59:18 PM

And yes, the Oresteia is incredibly profound, a work about the very origins of politics and the state.

Posted by: MQ at Jan 28, 2007 12:00:27 AM

"Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" by Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay (books and BBC television series) -- a satirical and accurate look at how democratic politics works.

Posted by: Kurt Schuler at Jan 29, 2007 2:48:25 PM

Oh, c'mon! The Gay Place, by Billy Lee Brammer. Situated in Texas, of course.

Posted by: Ralph Hitchens at Jan 29, 2007 3:25:36 PM

The Palliser series by Anthony Trollope, and the Leopard by by Giuseppe di Lampedusa.

Posted by: Mari at Jan 30, 2007 11:22:30 AM

I think that Megan Non-McArdle would get first prize in "Summarize Proust." (Apologies in advance to Megan and non-Python fans!)

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