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.

哈維·C.曼斯菲爾德(1932— )政治哲學傢、哈佛大學政府教授，施特勞斯學派重要人物，研究領域涉及埃德濛·柏剋與政黨本質、馬基雅維裏與間接政府的發明、執行權理論的發明與發展等，同時也是馬基雅維裏著作的翻譯者。主要著作有《政治傢與政黨政府》(1965)、《自由主義的精神》(1978)、《馬基雅維裏的新範式與秩序》(1979)、《馴化君主》(1989)、《美國的憲法靈魂》(1991)、《馬基雅維裏的德性》(1996)。