Political Books

Interest in political books ranges from Aristotle’s "Ethics and Politics" to counterculture landmarks like Tom Wolfe’s "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." From books about the Founding Fathers to a book by Neo-anarchist Noam Chomsky, the collector has a broad field of themes to choose from.

Political thought is so woven into human history that the two sometimes become indistinguishable. Collectors of political books are also connoisseurs of history. It is by studying these ideas that scholars make sense of what has brought human government to its current state, what went wrong, what went right, and where humankind is going.

Early political books include political theories such as Plato’s "The Republic" and Machiavelli’s "The Prince." The political pamphlet "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is a later example of a groundbreaking political work. Other major milestones are "The Rights of Man" and "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, "On Liberty' by John Stewart Mill, and "Guerilla Warfare" by Che Guevara. Many collections focus solely on American presidents, the history of war and government, women’s suffrage, or civil rights, according to the taste of the collector.

Quick Facts

• An 1848 copy of "Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels sold for $39,811 in a 1986 auction by Sotheby’s
• A two-volume set bound as one first edition of "The Proceedings of the Convention of Delegates, Held at the Capitol, In the City of Williamsburg, In the Colony of Virginia, on Monday the 6th of May, 1776" sold for $197,000 at Heritage Auctions in 2014
• The first book form printing of the Declaration of Independence, bound as part of six American Revolutionary pamphlets including Thomas Paine’s "Common Sense," sold for $370,000 at an auction by Sotheby’s in 2015