front cover of Aristotle
Aristotle
Democracy and Political Science
Delba Winthrop
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Today, democracy is seen as the best or even the only legitimate form of government—hardly in need of defense. Delba Winthrop punctures this complacency and takes up the challenge of justifying democracy through Aristotle’s political science. In Aristotle’s time and in ours, democrats want inclusiveness; they want above all to include everyone a part of a whole. But what makes a whole? This is a question for both politics and philosophy, and Winthrop shows that Aristotle pursues the answer in the Politics. She uncovers in his political science the insights philosophy brings to politics and, especially, the insights politics brings to philosophy. Through her appreciation of this dual purpose and skilled execution of her argument, Winthrop’s discoveries are profound. Central to politics, she maintains, is the quality of assertiveness—the kind of speech that demands to be heard. Aristotle, she shows for the first time, carries assertive speech into philosophy, when human reason claims its due as a contribution to the universe.  Political science gets the high role of teacher to ordinary folk in democracy and to the few who want to understand what sustains it.
           
This posthumous publication is more than an honor to Delba Winthrop’s memory. It is a gift to partisans of democracy, advocates of justice, and students of Aristotle.
 
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Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville
University of Chicago Press, 2000
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) came to America in 1831 to see what a great republic was like. What struck him most was the country's equality of conditions, its democracy. The book he wrote on his return to France, Democracy in America, is both the best ever written on democracy and the best ever written on America. It remains the most often quoted book about the United States, not only because it has something to interest and please everyone, but also because it has something to teach everyone.
 
When it was published in 2000, Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop's new translation of Democracy in America—only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840—was lauded in all quarters as the finest and most definitive edition of Tocqueville's classic thus far. Mansfield and Winthrop have restored the nuances of Tocqueville's language, with the expressed goal "to convey Tocqueville's thought as he held it rather than to restate it in comparable terms of today." The result is a translation with minimal interpretation, but with impeccable annotations of unfamiliar references and a masterful introduction placing the work and its author in the broader contexts of political philosophy and statesmanship.
 
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front cover of Democracy in America
Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville
University of Chicago Press, 2000

This is an auto-narrated audiobook edition of this book. 

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) came to America in 1831 to see what a great republic was like. What struck him most was the country's equality of conditions, its democracy. The book he wrote on his return to France, Democracy in America, is both the best ever written on democracy and the best ever written on America. It remains the most often quoted book about the United States, not only because it has something to interest and please everyone, but also because it has something to teach everyone.
 
When it was published in 2000, Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop's new translation of Democracy in America—only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840—was lauded in all quarters as the finest and most definitive edition of Tocqueville's classic thus far. Mansfield and Winthrop have restored the nuances of Tocqueville's language, with the expressed goal "to convey Tocqueville's thought as he held it rather than to restate it in comparable terms of today." The result is a translation with minimal interpretation, but with impeccable annotations of unfamiliar references and a masterful introduction placing the work and its author in the broader contexts of political philosophy and statesmanship.
 
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front cover of Discourses on Livy
Discourses on Livy
Niccolò Machiavelli
University of Chicago Press, 1996
Discourses on Livy is the founding document of modern republicanism, and Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov have provided the definitive English translation of this classic work. Faithful to the original Italian text, properly attentive to Machiavelli's idiom and subtlety of thought, it is eminently readable. With a substantial introduction, extensive explanatory notes, a glossary of key words, and an annotated index, the Discourses reveals Machiavelli's radical vision of a new science of politics, a vision of "new modes and orders" that continue to shape the modern ethos.

"[Machiavelli] found in Livy the means to inspire scholars for five centuries. Within the Discourses, often hidden and sometimes unintended by their author, lie the seeds of modern political thought. . . . [Mansfield and Tarcov's] translation is careful and idiomatic."—Peter Stothard, The Times

"Translated with painstaking accuracy—but also great readability."—Weekly Standard

"A model of contemporary scholarship and a brave effort at Machiavelli translation that allows the great Florentine to speak in his own voice."—Choice
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front cover of Discourses on Livy
Discourses on Livy
Niccolò Machiavelli
University of Chicago Press, 1996
Discourses on Livy is the founding document of modern republicanism, and Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov have provided the definitive English translation of this classic work. Faithful to the original Italian text, properly attentive to Machiavelli's idiom and subtlety of thought, it is eminently readable. With a substantial introduction, extensive explanatory notes, a glossary of key words, and an annotated index, the Discourses reveals Machiavelli's radical vision of a new science of politics, a vision of "new modes and orders" that continue to shape the modern ethos.

"[Machiavelli] found in Livy the means to inspire scholars for five centuries. Within the Discourses, often hidden and sometimes unintended by their author, lie the seeds of modern political thought. . . . [Mansfield and Tarcov's] translation is careful and idiomatic."—Peter Stothard, The Times

"Translated with painstaking accuracy—but also great readability."—Weekly Standard

"A model of contemporary scholarship and a brave effort at Machiavelli translation that allows the great Florentine to speak in his own voice."—Choice
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front cover of Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders
Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders
A Study of the Discourses on Livy
Harvey C. Mansfield
University of Chicago Press, 2001
Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders is the only full-length interpretive study on Machiavelli's controversial and ambiguous work, Discourses on Livy. These discourses, considered by some to be Machiavelli's most important work, are thoroughly explained in a chapter-by-chapter commentary by Harvey C. Mansfield, one of the world's foremost interpreters of this remarkable philosopher.

Mansfield's aim is to discern Machiavelli's intention in writing the book: he argues that Machiavelli wanted to introduce new modes and orders in political philosophy in order to make himself the founder of modern politics. Mansfield maintains that Machiavelli deliberately concealed part of his intentions so that only the most perceptive reader could see beneath the surface of the text and understand the whole of his book. Previously out of print, Mansfield's penetrating study brings to light the hidden thoughts lurking in the details of the Discourses on Livy to inform and challenge its readers at every step along the way.
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front cover of Machiavelli's Virtue
Machiavelli's Virtue
Harvey C. Mansfield
University of Chicago Press, 1996
Uniting thirty years of authoritative scholarship by a master of textual detail, Machiavelli's Virtue is a comprehensive statement on the founder of modern politics. Harvey Mansfield reveals the role of sects in Machiavelli's politics, his advice on how to rule indirectly, and the ultimately partisan character of his project, and shows him to be the founder of such modern and diverse institutions as the impersonal state and the energetic executive. Accessible and elegant, this groundbreaking interpretation explains the puzzles and reveals the ambition of Machiavelli's thought.

"The book brings together essays that have mapped [Mansfield's] paths of reflection over the past thirty years. . . . The ground, one would think, is ancient and familiar, but Mansfield manages to draw out some understandings, or recognitions, jarringly new."—Hadley Arkes, New Criterion

"Mansfield's book more than rewards the close reading it demands."—Colin Walters, Washington Times

"[A] masterly new book on the Renaissance courtier, statesman and political philosopher. . . . Mansfield seeks to rescue Machiavelli from liberalism's anodyne rehabilitation."—Roger Kimball, The Wall Street Journal
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front cover of The Prince
The Prince
Second Edition
Niccolò Machiavelli
University of Chicago Press, 1998
The most famous book on politics ever written, The Prince remains as lively and shocking today as when it was written almost five hundred years ago. Initially denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and a recommendation of tyranny, it has more recently been defended as the first scientific treatment of politics as it is practiced rather than as it ought to be practiced. Harvey C. Mansfield's brilliant translation of this classic work, along with the new materials added for this edition, make it the definitive version of The Prince, indispensable to scholars, students, and those interested in the dark art of politics.

This revised edition of Mansfield's acclaimed translation features an updated bibliography, a substantial glossary, an analytic introduction, a chronology of Machiavelli's life, and a map of Italy in Machiavelli's time.

"Of the other available [translations], that of Harvey C. Mansfield makes the necessary compromises between exactness and readability, as well as providing an excellent introduction and notes."—Clifford Orwin, The Wall Street Journal

"Mansfield's work . . . is worth acquiring as the best combination of accuracy and readability."—Choice

"There is good reason to assert that Machiavelli has met his match in Mansfield. . . . [He] is ready to read Machiavelli as he demands to be read—plainly and boldly, but also cautiously."—John Gueguen, The Sixteenth Century Journal
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front cover of The Prince
The Prince
Second Edition
Niccolò Machiavelli
University of Chicago Press, 1998
This is an auto-narrated audiobook version of this book.

The most famous book on politics ever written, The Prince remains as lively and shocking today as when it was written almost five hundred years ago. Initially denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and a recommendation of tyranny, it has more recently been defended as the first scientific treatment of politics as it is practiced rather than as it ought to be practiced. Harvey C. Mansfield's brilliant translation of this classic work, along with the new materials added for this edition, make it the definitive version of The Prince, indispensable to scholars, students, and those interested in the dark art of politics.

This revised edition of Mansfield's acclaimed translation features an updated bibliography, a substantial glossary, an analytic introduction, a chronology of Machiavelli's life, and a map of Italy in Machiavelli's time.

"Of the other available [translations], that of Harvey C. Mansfield makes the necessary compromises between exactness and readability, as well as providing an excellent introduction and notes."—Clifford Orwin, The Wall Street Journal

"Mansfield's work . . . is worth acquiring as the best combination of accuracy and readability."—Choice

"There is good reason to assert that Machiavelli has met his match in Mansfield. . . . [He] is ready to read Machiavelli as he demands to be read—plainly and boldly, but also cautiously."—John Gueguen, The Sixteenth Century Journal
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front cover of Selected Letters of Edmund Burke
Selected Letters of Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
University of Chicago Press, 1984
Edmund Burke (1729-97) was a British statesman, a political philosopher, a literary critic, the grandfather of modern conservatism, and an elegant, prolific letter writer and prose stylist. His most important letters, filled with sparkling prose and profound insights, are gathered here for the first time in one volume. Arranged topically, the letters bring alive Burke's passionate views on such issues as party politics, reform and revolution, British relations with America, India, and Ireland, toleration and religion, and literary and philosophical concerns.
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front cover of Statesmanship and Party Government
Statesmanship and Party Government
A Study of Burke and Bolingbroke
Harvey C. Mansfield
University of Chicago Press, 1965
In this incisive look at early modern views of party politics, Harvey C. Mansfield examines the pamphlet war between Edmund Burke and the followers of Henry St. John, First Viscount Bolingbroke during the mid-eighteenth century. In response to works by Bolingbroke published posthumously, Burke created his most eloquent advocacy of the party system. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the material, Mansfield shows that present-day parties must be understood in the light of the history of party government. The complicated organization and the public actions of modern parties are the result, he contends, and not the cause of a great change in opinion about parties.

Mansfield points out that while parties have always existed, the party government that we know today is possible only because parties are now considered respectable. In Burke’s day, however, they were thought by detractors to be a cancer in a free polity. Even many supporters of the parties viewed them as a dangerous instrument, only to be used cautiously by statesmen in dire times. Burke, however, was an early champion of the party system in Britain and made his arguments with a clear-eyed realism. In Statesmanship and Party Government, Mansfield provides a skillful evaluation of Burke’s writings and sheds light present-day party politics through a profound understanding of the historical background of the their inception.
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