Now with a new foreword by Patrick J. Deneen.

Jean Bethke Elshtain brings Augustine's thought into the contemporary political arena and presents an Augustine who created a complex moral map that offers space for loyalty, love, and care, as well as a chastened form of civic virtue. The result is a controversial book about one of the world's greatest and most complex thinkers whose thought continues to haunt all of Western political philosophy. What is our business "within this common mortal life?" Augustine asks and bids us to ask ourselves. What can Augustine possibly have to say about the conditions that characterize our contemporary society and appear to put democracy in crisis? Who is Augustine for us now and what do his words have to do with political theory? These are the underlying questions that animate Jean Bethke Elshtain's fascinating engagement with the thought and work of Augustine, the ancient thinker who gave no political theory per se and refused to offer up a positive utopia. In exploring the questions, Why Augustine, why now?
Elshtain argues that Augustine's great works display a canny and scrupulous attunement to the here and now and the very real limits therein. She discusses other aspects of Augustine's thought as well, including his insistence that no human city can be modeled on the heavenly city, and further elaborates on Hannah Arendt's deep indebtedness to Augustine's understanding of evil. Elshtain also presents Augustine's arguments against the pridefulness of philosophy, thereby linking him to later currents in modern thought, including Wittgenstein and Freud.

About the Author

Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941-2013) was one of the nation's most prominent and provocative thinkers on religion, political philosophy, and ethics. She was the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the Divinity School, Political Science, and the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago. She was the author of numerous books, including Sovereignty: God, State, and Self.

Patrick J. Deneen holds the David A. Potenziani Memorial College Chair in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

Reviews

"Professor Elshtain has written an engaged, impassioned and highly personal book chronicling her own engagements with the writings of St. Augustine, and her own attempts to apply Augustine's political, social and ethical thought so as to make sense of present-day crises and anxieties." -International Studies in Philosophy

"[This] is a book that does much to rectify the kind of continuous injustice done Augustine by the modern secular world. People who have only a passing acquaintance with Augustine, and judge him mainly by prevailing attitudes, can learn much from Augustine and the Limits of Politics. . . . It is an intelligent, warm, and well-informed discussion." -American Political Science Review

"[Her] book is engagingly and charmingly written, and gently provokes the reader to take another look at Augustine." -Dialogue

"Augustine and the Limits of Politics should be required reading for undergraduates, graduates and scholars interested in Augustine, the current 'identity' debate, or the theory and ethics of war and peace." -Journal of Religion and Culture

"This very engaging, very philosophical, and yet very personal book reintroduces Augustine to the heart of modern political philosophy. . . . All readers seriously interested in Augustine and responsive to him will welcome Elshtain's book as a refreshing breeze." -Theological Studies

"Elstain's hope is to reach those, especially among political philosophers and theologians, who have rejected Augustinian philosophy because of what has become the unjust but widespread tradition that he is a pessimist, a misogynist, a narcissist, and irrelevant to contemporary problems. With passion, Elshtain argues that the time is ripe for a reconsideration of Augustine's Confessions and City of God." -Review of Metaphysics

"Augustine provides us, as Elshtain puts it, 'a complex moral map that offers space for loyalty and love and care, as well as for a chastened form of civic virtue' (p. 91). This is not a guidebook to Utopia but a solid critical discipline for negotiating the affairs of the day." - Academic Press

"Elshtain attains rare achievement of a work that is both creatively erudite, and streamlined. An almost 'fat-free' volume, Augustine and the Limits of Politics is inter-disciplinary enough to recommend itself to a broad range of people, from political philosophers, to historians of thought, to theologians." -Journal of Religion and Culture

"In Augustine and the Limits of Politics (1995), Elshtain engages in dialogue with a fourth- and fifth-century Christian theologian to explore issues of limitation and human evil in the political realm."-Religious Studies Review

"Elshtain brings ancient and modern light to bear on the eternal question of how to live the good life in a fallen world." -Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law School

Book Information
ISBN 9780268020019
Author Jean Bethke Elshtain
Format Paperback
Page Count 174
Imprint University of Notre Dame Press
Publisher University of Notre Dame Press
Weight(grams) 230g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 10mm