Rainer Eisfeld’s book highlights the merits of socio-historical research into topics infrequently covered by mainstream political science. Directing attention to the need for carefully scrutinizing the convenient ‘truths’ of established — post-Nazi, post-Communist — political narratives, its chapters encourage reflection of the discipline’s history and state of the art. A companion volume to the 2012 book entitled Radical Approaches to Political Science: Roads Less Traveled (also published by Barbara Budrich), this collection is likewise based on an approach to political science informed by a theory of participatory pluralism and grounded in history. The chapters focus on the discipline’s fragmentation and its retreat from public debate; on the varying roles of political science and international relations as champions of more or less democracy; on normative and analytical concepts developed by Hannah Arendt, Klaus von Beyme, and Robert A. Dahl; on the deconstruction of the ‘Peenemünde Legend’ about the unspoiled rule of science at the Third Reich’s missile development center; on reasons for the Peenemünde engineers’ actual complicity in the exploitation of concentration camp labor to mass-produce their V-2 missile. ‘Rainer Eisfeld’s leadership in the fields of pluralism and analysis of the discipline in the International Political Science Association means that he has quite a background to share with us in this, his most recent, collection of essays.’ John Trent

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