Power, Pleasure, and Profit
Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison

The shift from medieval Europe to our modern world was the shift from collective security based on fixed social positions to a more fluid relationship between working to better yourself and having personal greed marketed as a public service by labeling it the "invisible hand." Why I started this boo......more

In traditional cultures, societies organized themselves around virtues that contributed to the unity of their culture. For the Greeks, one of the fundamental virtues was "arete," living up to one's full potential through a life of moderation and honor. For the Hebrews, it meant living a life that w......more

David Wootton's earlier book, _The Invention of Science_, is a must-read. I was hoping the same magic in this book. What I got was not exactly the same magic, more just a reminder of that magic. The primary problem is that this book is cobbled together from a variety of papers that all kinda sorta cov......more

This engaging work looks at the transition that occurred in the Western world in the early modern period. Wootton shows how the values of the Enlightenment, against which we are constantly carping, were put in place both in theory and practice. The result, free markets and political liberty, he argu......more

I’m a huge fan of The Invention of Science, and was very interested in the premise of this book. However here the author is much more interested here in showing that he has the right interpretation of what Machiavelli, Hobbes and A. Smith actually meant. I just care very little about what this “grea......more