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Comprehensive study of "manliness"
Yale University Press
February 2006
304 pages ISBN: 0300106645 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
This book invites�no, demands�a response from its readers.
It is impossible not to be drawn in to the provocative
(often contentious) discussion that Harvey Mansfield sets
before us. This is the first comprehensive study of
manliness, a quality both bad and good, mostly male, often
intolerant, irrational, and ambitious. Our �gender-neutral
society� does not like it but cannot get rid of it. Drawing from science, literature, and philosophy, Mansfield
examines the layers of manliness, from vulgar aggression, to
assertive manliness, to manliness as virtue, and to
philosophical manliness. He shows that manliness seeks and
welcomes drama, prefers times of war, conflict, and risk,
and brings change or restores order at crucial moments. Manly men in their assertiveness raise issues, bring them to
the fore, and make them public and political�as for example,
the manliness of the women�s movement. After a wide-ranging tour from stereotypes to Hemingway and
Achilles, to Nietzsche, to feminism, and to Plato, the
author returns to today�s problem of �unemployed
manliness.�
Formulating a reasoned defense of a quality hardly obedient
to reason, he urges men, and especially women, to understand
and accept manliness, and to give it honest and honorable
employment.
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