The Monarchy of Fear

Nussbaum is one of the most accomplished political and moral philosophers of our time...there is almost no domain of political and moral life and thought that her work and apparently endless curiosity have not explored. --William Adams, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Nussbaum is an elegant and lyrical writer, and she movingly describes the pain of recognizing one's vulnerability... --Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker One of America's leading philosophers here probes this dangerous fusion of emotions, explaining Trump's twenty-first-century ascendance as part of a distressing human dynamic manifested through history and around the globe...even readers skeptical about Nussbaum's political orientation will welcome this call for an emotionally healthier public life. -- Bryce Christensen, Booklist Nussbaum's erudite but very readable investigation engages figures from Aristotle to Donald Trump in lucid and engaging prose...Nussbaum offers fresh, worthwhile insights into the animosities that roil contemporary public life. --Publishers Weekly Noted philosopher, prolific author and University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum assesses our current political crisis, which she argues is essentially a politics of blame and fear. From classical thought to the hit musical Hamilton, she uses a variety of examples to illustrate what brought us to this fraught place and how we can move forward. --Chicago Tribune An engaging and inviting study of humanity's long-standing fear of the other. --Kirkus, starred review An elegant and precise stylist, Nussbaum...writes about gut feelings like envy and disgust with an air of serene lucidity...one of the virtues of this slender volume is how gradually and scrupulously it moves, as Nussbaum pushes you to slow down, think harder and revisit your knee-jerk assumptions. [Nussbaum is] a skillful rhetorician...she wants to show how the feeling of fear is primal and therefore universal, reminding us that we were all helpless infants once, dependent on the kindness and mercy of others. --New York Times Book Review