02247nam a22003017a 4500 OSt 20260224123330.0 260224b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d 9780674298859 (HB) kul 320.01 MAN/R Colon Classification Mansfield, Harvey C 10792 Rise and Fall of Rational Control: The History of Modern Political Philosophy Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Hardvard University Press, 2025 xii, 323p. The Rise and Fall of Rational Control 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. Political Philosophy Niccolo Machiavelli 10793 Thomas Hobbes 10794 John Locke 10795 Jean Jacques Rousseau 10796 Immanuel Kant 8617 Hegel Karl Marx 1738 Friedrich Nietzsche 10797 ddc BK 756879 756879 0 0 ddc 0 0 NFIC PHL PHL PROC 2026-02-24 Modern Book Centre, MBC/0744/2025 Dtd 10/02/2026 3169.95 1 320.01 MAN/R PHL4884 2026-03-26 2026-02-24 08:56:33 2026-02-24 2026-02-24 BK