My five star rating is based on the quality of this handsome edition of one of the classics of political philosophy.  Classics of this magnitude, whether Adam Smith's THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, Tocqueville's DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, or THE FEDERALIST PAPERS have achieved a status that makes the assigning of a rating rather silly.  Regardless of one's feelings about Marxism or Communism, a work of such gigantic influence is of such a status that rating it is almost silly.  It is one of the constitutive artifacts of our culture.