Rope: Play (Drama S.)

by Patrick Hamilton

Professional politicians have increasingly come under public attack in most democratic countries. Yet they have received surprisingly little systematic attention in political science. This book demonstrates that there are both striking similarities between professional politicians in different countries and notable national peculiarities. The introduction develops a common conceptual framework for the chapters to follow. Using Mosca's term and Weber's seminal insights it reconstructs the concept of political class to grasp the degree of common interests shared by politicians of different parties and in different institutions. Thereby, it presents an innovative perspective on politicians. The 20 country chapters written by scholars from 16 countries both provide up-to-date information on professional politics in their countries and discuss the merits of the theoretical approach. In doing so, they follow a common format thus facilitating a comparative reading of particular aspects.

• ISBN10: 0094508607
• ISBN13: 9780094508606
• Publish Date: 1 March 1975
• Publish Status: Transferred
• Out of Print: 6 August 2007
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Constable
• Edition: 3rd edition
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 90
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

For those of you who have access to BBC iPlayer, you can still listen to the radio production of Rope featuring Alan Rickman for a few days.

Rope was also famously turned into a Hitchcock film starring James Stewart. However, the film version, as good as it is, is set in a different time and misses out, in my opinion, on one of the crucial issues of Hamilton's original play, even though it does try to update the discussion.

The original play was set in the post-war London of the 1920s with the questions and issues raised by the First World War still very much on the minds of people. It is with this background, that Hamilton weaves in the question of when murder becomes socially and morally acceptable - when is killing murder and when is it war.

I had so far only seen the film, but the original play is really worth listening to - even if some of the dialogue and plot are a little forced.