$a The lens of understanding. Part 1 Premodern: Plato and the invention of political science; Jesus and public administration. Part 2 Modernist defined: Niccolo Machiavelli and modern public administration; mercantilism - the great temptation; JeremyBentham - utilitarianism, public policy and the administrative state; John Locke's influence on American government and public administration; Adam Smith's legacy. Part 3 Early loyal opposition to the modernist: David Hume and public administration -empiricism, skepticism and constitutionalism; Edmund Burke - the role of public administration in a constitutional order. Part 4 American modernist influence: making democracy safe for the world - public administration in the political thought of WoodrowWilson; progressivism - critiques and contradictions; the bureau movement - seedbed of modern public administration; of proverbs and positivism - the logical Herbert Simon. Part 5 Later modernist opposition: Marshall Dimock's deflective organizationaltheory; phenomenology; Jean-Paul Sartre; John Rawls and public administration. Part 6 Rise of postmodernism: from positivism to post-positivism - an unfinished journey; on the language of bureaucracy - postmodernism, plain English and Wittgenstein;postmodern philosophy, postmodernity and public organizational theory. Part 7 Postmodern alternative: public enterpreneurism - a new paradigm for public administration ; 21st-century philosophy and public administration.

$a Explicates the major issues in public and government organization theory using classical philosophy- covering and relating a broad range of individual philosophers as well as philosophic movements to public administration-from Plato to the postmoderns. Chronologically arranged to demonstrate the evolution of ideas.