Professor Isaac’s teaching and research interests center around political theory, broadly understood. His book, Power and Marxist Theory: A Realist View (1987), is a critique of recent debates about the concept of power, and an analysis of the relevance of the concept to contemporary Marxian theory. Professor Isaac has contributed articles on the philosophy of social science to such journals as Sociology, Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, and a 1987 book, Idioms of Inquiry: Critique and Renewal in Political Theory, edited by Terrence Ball. He has also written extensively on the history of political thought, having published articles on John Locke’s theory of property in Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, republicanism in History of Political Thought, and Karl Marx in Polity. Professor Isaac’s current book titled Arendt, Camus, and Modern Rebellion (1992), focuses on the writings of Hannah Arendt and Albert Camus. He has recently published a short critique of his book in Political Theory, which lays out some of the parameters of his book, and has also published on Arendt and Camus in Praxis International and Dissent.
He also has a new book titled Democracy in Dark Times (1997). Professor Isaac has taught in all areas of political science, including American Government, Comparative Politics, Soviet Politics, Central American Geopolitics, and Politics and Religion. His interests in political theory integrate a concern with substantive empirical analysis and current events and, in addition to his academic writing, he has contributed analyses of current events to Dissent, In these Times, and Tikkun.
