Harvey C. Mansfield at the Cambridge Public Library

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Harvey C. Mansfield—William R. Kenan, Jr., Research Professor of Government at Harvard University and recipient of the National Humanities Medal—for a discussion of his new book, The Rise and Fall of Rational Control: The History of Modern Political Philosophy. He will be joined in conversation by Eric Nelson—Robert M. Beren Professor of Government at Harvard University.

Ticketing

RSVP for free to this event or choose the "Book-Included" ticket to reserve a copy of The Rise and Fall of Rational Control and pick it up at the event. Following the presentation will be a book signing.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

About The Rise and Fall of Rational Control

A renowned scholar traces the evolution of modern political philosophy.

The History of Modern Political Philosophy is a bold interpretation of centuries of intellectual revolutions. Based on Harvey C. Mansfield’s legendary Harvard course, taught for decades to rapt classrooms, this volume is both a grand work of ideas and an elucidating reflection on liberalism, its eclipse, and the possibility of renewal.

Mansfield locates the birth of modern political philosophy in the work of Niccolò Machiavelli, the first to assert that the objective of politics is not to achieve wishful ideals of justice or virtue—as the ancients had it—but to manipulate the brute facts of the world in service of interests. Here rational control, free from the order of gods or God, is the key to achieving the modern order, which can liberate humans from slavery and conflict. Hobbes and Locke later develop Machiavelli’s modern idea, laying foundations for liberalism. Then comes the first crisis in the form of Rousseau, who introduces historical change into the very idea of reason, which itself is said to evolve. After Rousseau, history takes center stage, as witnessed in Kant, Marx, and Hegel. The second crisis of modernity arrives with Nietzsche, who casts doubt on reason itself. Ever since, political thought has been stranded in the desert of postmodernism, where Machiavelli’s necessities are replaced by faded subjectivity.

Tracing the rise and fall of rational control, Mansfield asks where we go from here. Can we progress beyond our unease with what is modern, or should we aim to return somehow to what came before?

Bios

Harvey C. Mansfield is William R. Kenan, Jr., Research Professor of Government at Harvard University. The author and translator of many books, he has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships and is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal.

Eric Nelson is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Government at Harvard University. His research focuses on the history of political thought in early-modern Europe and America, and on the implications of that history for debates in contemporary political theory. Nelson is the author, most recently, of The Theology of Liberalism: Political Philosophy and the Justice of God (Harvard/Belknap, 2019). His other books include The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Harvard/Belknap, 2014), which received the Society of the Cincinnati History Prize and was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2015, as well as a Choice "Top 25 Books for 2015" selection; The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Harvard/Belknap, 2010), which received the Erwin Stein Prize and the Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies and was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2010; and The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2004). He also edited Hobbes's translations of the Iliad and Odyssey for the Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes (The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2008). His essays have appeared in a wide range of scholarly journals and edited volumes. Nelson received his AB summa cum laude from Harvard University (1999) and his PhD from The University of Cambridge (2002). He has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. He has also been a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a British Marshall Scholar.

Masking Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

Co-Sponsor

The Cambridge Public Library serves as a doorway to opportunity, self-development, and recreation for all its residents, and as a forum where they may share ideas, cultures, and resources among themselves and with people around the globe. Learn more at cambridgema.gov/cpl.