Political Theory & Thinkers — The thinkers and concepts behind the PSIR optional. A complete volume in the Anantam IAS series, running to 22 chapters across roughly 198 pages. Each chapter stands on its own, so you can read the book straight through or jump to the one topic you have not covered yet.
What is inside
Every chapter here is an article already published on anantamias.com, edited into a single sequence and typeset as a book. On the site you meet these topics one at a time, in whatever order search happens to send you. Here the whole subject sits in one place, in an order that builds. The PDF is fully searchable, so you can jump to a scheme name, an article number, or a case name directly.
Who it is for
Aspirants preparing for the UPSC civil services examination and state public service commissions, and anyone who would rather revise from one continuous document than from a browser with thirty tabs open. It suits a first pass through a subject and it suits revision, because the contents list doubles as a syllabus checklist.
How to use it
Read it once end to end to get the shape of the subject. Come back to the individual chapters where you felt least confident. Close to the exam, skimming only the headings and tables does most of the work. The file is free, so download it and keep it offline rather than relying on a connection the night before a test.
Full contents
- Hannah Arendt: The Banality of Evil, Thoughtlessness and Bureaucratic Complicity (UPSC Ethics — GS IV)
- Justice: Rawls, Nozick and the Communitarian Critique
- Political Theory: Meaning, Approaches, Decline and Revival
- Theories of the State
- Equality and Freedom
- Rights: Theories, Generations and Debates
- Democracy: Classical, Contemporary and Deliberative
- Power, Authority and Legitimacy
- Political Ideologies I: Liberalism, Socialism, Marxism
- Political Ideologies II: Fascism, Gandhism, Feminism
- Plato and Aristotle
- Machiavelli and Hobbes
- Locke and John Stuart Mill
- Marx and Gramsci
- Hannah Arendt
- The Nineteenth-Century Response: Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Sri Aurobindo
- M. N. Roy, Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan
- Perspectives on the Indian National Movement
- Principal Organs of the State Government
- Statutory Institutions and Commissions
- Planning and Economic Development
- Party System, Coalition Politics and Pressure Groups
Free to download. The volume is refreshed as chapters are added or updated, so a later download may carry more than this one.
