What makes The Philosophic Roots an excellent textbook is that it emerges out of vast teaching experience that the authors have in a variety of university and college contexts. Each chapter is written in a way that invites readers at all levels into a classroom dialogue about the vision of humanity offered by each ideology and the kind of political world each ideology seeks to create. In these ways, The Philosophic Roots is an effective learning source for both those with little knowledge about the content of each ideology and those with prior knowledge seeking to think even more about the meaning and political significance of each belief system.