The purpose of this book is to put before the student of politics and the general reader an overall conspectus of the sources from which political ideas took their origin. The author, who is an acknowledged international authority on the subject and who over many years of intensive research has acquired an intimate familiarity with the material, makes his specialised knowledge available to the non-specialist. The book traverses ground that is virtually uncultivated, and it does so in an exciting way - by taking the reader into the chanceries of governments, of public organs and functionaries, and into the lecture halls of the great scholars in the universities. It shows upon what presuppositions publicists, litterateurs, government advisers, scholars and learned writers have proceeded to arrive at their political views. This variegated mass of material is here comprehensively presented.