“Kann's latest tour de force explores the ambivalence, during the founding of our nation, about whether political freedom should augur sexual freedom. Tracing the roots of patriarchal sexual repression back to revolutionary America, Kann asks highly contemporary questions about the boundaries between public and private life, suggesting, provocatively, that political and sexual freedom should go hand in hand.” —Ben Agger, University of Texas at Arlington The American Revolution was fought in the name of liberty. In popular imagination, the Revolution stands for the triumph of populism and the death of patriarchal elites. But this is not the case, argues Mark E. Kann. Rather, in the aftermath of the Revolution, America developed a society and system of laws that kept patriarchal authority alive and well—especially when it came to the sex lives of citizens. In Taming Passion for the Public Good, Kann contends that that despite the rhetoric of classical liberalism, the founding generation did not trust ordinary citizens with extensive liberty. Under the guise of paternalism, they were able simultaneously to retain social control while espousing liberal principles, with the goal of ultimately molding the country into the new American ideal: a moral and orderly citizenry that voluntarily did what was best for the public good. Mark E. Kann, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and History, held the USC Associates Chair in Social Science at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Republic of Men (NYU Press, 1998) and Punishment, Prisons, and Patriarchy (NYU Press, 2005).

Since 2008, profound questions have been asked about the driving forces and self-regulating potential of the economic system, political control and morality. With opinion turning against markets and self-interest, economists found themselves on the wrong side of the argument. This book explores how the past of economics can contribute to today’s debates. The book considers how economics took shape as philosophers probed into the viability of commercial society and its potential to generate positive-sum outcomes. It explains how dreams of affluence, morality and happiness were built upon human greed and vanity. It covers the bumpy road of the construction and reconstruction of this dream, exploring the debate on the foundations, conditions and limitations of the idea of the social utility of greed and vanity. Revisiting this debate provides a rich source of ideas in rethinking economics and the basic beliefs concerning our economic system today.

The desire for knowledge is an abiding facet of human experience and cultural development. This work documents curiosity as a sociohistorical force initiating research across the disciplines. Projects generated by theoretical curiosity are presented as historical and material practices emerging as expressions of embodied knowledge and experience. The shifting cultural, philosophical and practical relations between theory and curiosity are situated within classical, medieval, early modern and contemporary communities of practice. The Practice of Theoretical Curiosity advocates for a critical, aesthetic engagement in everyday life. Its purpose is to examine the pedagogical grounds and questions that motivate research programs in the sciences, education, technoculture and post-war social movements. Theoretical curiosity continually resists disciplinary limits. It is a core, embodied process uniting human pursuits of knowledge and power. This inquiry into inquiry itself offers an appreciation of the vital continuity between the senses, perception, and affect and concept development. It is informed by a critical reading of phenomenology as the embodied practice of researchers. This study sponsors a deepening of theory in practice and the practice of theoretical exploration. As a contribution to pedagogical practice, it offers a historical critique of the usually unquestioned philosophical, political and ethical grounds for educational, scientific and social research. The Practice of Theoretical Curiosity profiles significant alliances and persona as agents for the pursuit of novel and often controversial research, adventures and discovery. It claims that the place of technology and the technical is the primary channel for contemporary inquiry. The technosciences of genomics, artificial life and astrobiology are considered as contemporary extensions of a perennial desire to pursue and resist the limits of existing knowledge and representation.

In a study that combines an in-depth examination of Madison's National Gazette essays of 1791–2 with a study of The Federalist, Colleen Sheehan traces the evolution of Madison's conception of the politics of communication and public opinion throughout the Founding period, demonstrating how 'the sovereign public' would form and rule in America. Contrary to those scholars who claim that Madison dispensed with the need to form an active and virtuous citizenry, Sheehan argues that Madison's vision for the new nation was informed by the idea of republican self-government, whose manifestation he sought to bring about in the spirit and way of life of the American people. Madison's story is 'the story of an idea' - the idea of America.

What is the nature of economics? How does economics relate to politics? Readers searching for the Ancient Greeks’ answers to these questions often turn to Aristotle, focusing on small portions of the Politics and Nicomachean Ethics that relate to money-making, exchange, and household management. While this approach yields some understanding of economics and politics, it fails to account for how Aristotle’s theoretical inquiry into these practical matters reflects the character of his political philosophy. According to Aristotle, the Ethics and Politics together form “the philosophy concerning the human things.” All human things begin with choice, an intellectual desire and need for the good. Aristotle’s care for this desire is the heart of his political philosophy. Through a close, literal, and careful reading of Aristotle’s political philosophy, readers discover the natural boundaries to economic and political life. Simultaneously theoretical and practical, Aristotle’s political philosophy offers readers a perspective of economics and politics that provides them the experience of the knowledge they need to desire and live within the limit of the good.

In "Eighteenth Century British Aesthetics", editor Dabney Townsend has brought together the work of such well-known writers as John Dryden, Joshua Reynolds, David Hume, and Samuel Johnson with the more obscure works of aestheticians such as Uvedale Price, Daniel Webb, John Baillie, and James Harris, whose work is difficult to find, but is nonetheless important, informative, and interesting. These twenty-two selections, accompanied by Dabney Townsend's historical essay on the development of eighteenth century aesthetics, make the history of aesthetics accessible to both students and specialists alike.

Argues that some English writers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries synthesized a liberal republicanism.

"When Harry Met Sally" is only the most iconic of popular American movies, books, and articles that pose the question of whether friendships between men and women are possible. In Founding Friendships, Cassandra A. Good shows that this question was embedded in and debated as far back as the birth of the American nation. Indeed, many of the nation's founding fathers had female friends but popular rhetoric held that these relationships were fraught with social danger, if not impossible. Elite men and women formed loving, politically significant friendships in the early national period that were crucial to the individuals' lives as well as the formation of a new national political system, as Cassandra Good illuminates. Abigail Adams called her friend Thomas Jefferson "one of the choice ones on earth," while George Washington signed a letter to his friend Elizabeth Powel with the words "I am always Yours." Their emotionally rich language is often mistaken for romance, but by analyzing period letters, diaries, novels, and etiquette books, Good reveals that friendships between men and women were quite common. At a time when personal relationships were deeply political, these bonds offered both parties affection and practical assistance as well as exemplified republican values of choice, freedom, equality, and virtue. In so doing, these friendships embodied the core values of the new nation and represented a transitional moment in gender and culture. Northern and Southern, famous and lesser known, the men and women examined in Founding Friendships offer a fresh look at how the founding generation defined and experienced friendship, love, gender, and power.

Religious crosses the spheres of both the private life and the public institution. In a liberal democracy, public and private interests and goals prove to be inseparable. Clarke Cochran’s interdisciplinary study brings political theory and the sociology of religion together in a fresh interpretation of liberal culture. First published in 1990, this analysis begins with a reassessment of the nature of the "public" and the "private" in relation to the political. The controversy over religion and politics is examined in light of such contested issues of political life as sexuality, abortion, and the changing nature of the family. Clarifying a number of debates central to contemporary society, this timely reissue will be of particular value to students with an interest in the relationship between religious, society, and politics.