This book 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 defence of a quality hardly obedient to reason, he urges men, and especially women, to understand and accept manliness, and to give it honest and honourable employment.

哈维·C.曼斯菲尔德(1932— )政治哲学家、哈佛大学政府教授，施特劳斯学派重要人物，研究领域涉及埃德蒙·柏克与政党本质、马基雅维里与间接政府的发明、执行权理论的发明与发展等，同时也是马基雅维里著作的翻译者。主要著作有《政治家与政党政府》(1965)、《自由主义的精神》(1978)、《马基雅维里的新范式与秩序》(1979)、《驯化君主》(1989)、《美国的宪法灵魂》(1991)、《马基雅维里的德性》(1996)。