Politics (Sachs Edition)

“Joe Sachs has an extraordinary ability to render ancient Greek into English sentences that are so clear and direct that they help readers to look past Aristotle's technical terminology and reflect on the philosophical issues in the text. For beginning students Sachs's translations are an ideal vehicle through which to engage Aristotle's philosophy. For those of us who are more advanced, they are sufficiently different from the traditional translations to open fresh ways of thinking about the texts. Sachs does a fine job with the Politics. The translation is very readable and accurate, and the notes and glossary are insightful. The introductory essay by Lijun Gu valuably emphasizes the importance of book IV."
—Edward Halper, University of Georgia

SKU
27242g

Aristotle
Translation and Glossary by Joe Sachs
Introduction by Lijun Gu

2012 - 336 pp.
Imprint: Focus, Series: Focus Philosophical Library

Grouped product items
Format ISBN Price Qty
Paper 978-1-58510-376-8
$18.95
Instructor Examination (Review) Copy 978-1-58510-376-8
$3.00

eBook available for $14.95. Click HERE for more information and purchasing options.

From Hackett's new Focus imprint, this edition of Aristotle's Politics, translated by Joe Sachs, includes an introductory essay by Lijun Gu, notes, glossary, and index.

Reviews:

“Joe Sachs has an extraordinary ability to render ancient Greek into English sentences that are so clear and direct that they help readers to look past Aristotle's technical terminology and reflect on the philosophical issues in the text. For beginning students Sachs's translations are an ideal vehicle through which to engage Aristotle's philosophy. For those of us who are more advanced, they are sufficiently different from the traditional translations to open fresh ways of thinking about the texts. Sachs does a fine job with the Politics. The translation is very readable and accurate, and the notes and glossary are insightful. The introductory essay by Lijun Gu valuably emphasizes the importance of book IV."
     —Edward Halper, University of Georgia

"Sachs' erudite, yet accessible, extremely careful, and obviously thoughtful translation of Aristotle's Politics is impressive beyond measure. This translation is a must, both for scholars working on or otherwise interested in Aristotle's Politics as well as for students and others who might be reading this text for the first time. Indeed, Sachs’ text offers an understandable translation of one of the most important Aristotelian texts, while remaining extremely faithful to the original Greek. In addition, the supplementary features of Sachs’ translation, which include notes that help provide further understanding and context for certain claims, as well as the Glossary and the Summary of Contents, which appear at the end of the text, provide wonderful aids for those who are invested in understanding Aristotle's Politics."
     —Corinne Painter, Washtenaw Community College

"Joe Sachs' masterful translation of Aristotle’s Politics is the latest in a series encompassing Aristotle's Physics, (1995), Metaphysics (1999), On the Soul and On Memory and Recollection (2001), Nicomachean Ethics (2002), Poetics (2006) and Rhetoric (2009). This fact alone sets him apart from all other recent translators of the Politics: He is the only one who is not a specialist in one area of Aristotelian philosophy and his holistic command of the corpus allows him to deliver the most nuanced and precise translations available in English. In addition, he set himself the goal of avoiding in them the use of the traditional scholastic terminology which obstructs so much the interpretation of Aristotle’s thought. The Politics poses a unique challenge for the translator because it is a work of political philosophy, hence it necessarily has two kinds of readers in view and its language is both logically precise and rhetorically powerful. Joe Sachs’ translation renders both aspects with unmatched elegance and precision."
     —Antonio Marino López, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

"I used to encourage students not to be put off from the brilliance of Aristotle's ideas by the density of his imposing prose, until I came across the rigorous and readable set of translations by Joe Sachs. What strikes me most in this welcome new translation of Aristotle's Politics is the sense of Aristotle as a man thinking carefully how to speak about political realities he studied and witnessed, rather than a treatise-builder expounding political doctrines."
     —Nathan Andersen, Eckerd College

 

About the Author:

Joe Sachs taught for thirty years at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. He has translated Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, On the Soul, and, for the Focus Philosophical Library, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Poetics, Plato's Theaetetus, Republic, and Gorgias, a collection of Plato's dialogues entitled Socrates and the Sophists, and Plato's and Aristotle's Rhetoric.

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