European Journal of Political Theory 9(4) 504–512 ! The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1474885110382690 ept.sagepub.com EJPT Review Reality and imagination in political theory and practice: On Raymond Geuss’s realism Enzo Rossi University of Wales Raymond Geuss Philosophy and Real Politics Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. Raymond Geuss Politics and the Imagination Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010. A home-grown alternative to the dominant modus operandi of contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy has been quietly developing over the last couple of decades. In the last few years – under the labels of ‘political realism’ 1 or ‘the realist critique of liberalism’ – this alternative approach has begun to take the shape of a self-aware, almost programmatic current. 2 Crudely, realism’s main break with mainstream political philosophy consists in the thought that normative political theory should not try to silence, circumvent, contain, or ignore the forces that shape politics. In other words, political philosophy should not try to prescribe behaviour that runs against the grain of the practice of real politics. A typical target of this critique is the attempt, on the part of many contemporary liberals, to temper the coercive nature of the exercise of power by presenting it as legitimated by some sort of consensus – a move most realists would denounce as contemptibly ideolog- ical, or hopelessly idealistic, or guided by misplaced moralism. Realists would rather counsel to theorize within the inescapably gritty realm of politics, and none- theless seek to understand how power may be both genuinely coercive and norma- tively legitimate. One of the main challenges, then, becomes that of accounting for the possibility of normativity within a broadly realist framework. In this article I take up that challenge through a discussion of two recent books by Raymond Geuss, 3 who is rightly recognized as one of the leading exponents of the realist current. Yet Geuss’s lack of conformity to the expository conventions of Corresponding author: Dr Enzo Rossi, Social Ethics Research Group (SERG), School of Health and Social Sciences, University of Wales, Newport, Caerleon Campus, Lodge Road, Newport NP18 3QT, UK Email: enzo.rossi@newport.ac.uk