Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P487
ISBN: 9780881464856
Product Format: Paperback
Price: $24.00
Michel de Montaigne begins his magisterial ESSAIS by telling his readers that he, himself, is the matter of his book. He says that he has written himself so that after death he could remain in the world with those who knew and loved him. Montaigne’s intimate project, meant to be read by friends, has emerged as one of the most surprising and compelling accounts of the human condition ever written.
This volume of essays, based on papers presented at The A.V. Elliott Conference for Great Books and Ideas sponsored by Mercer University’s McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles, focuses on the outward oriented political philosophy of Montaigne, which is informed by his probing introspection and thoroughly unsentimental self-observation. Contributors include Ann Hartle, Daniel Cullen, Christine Henderson, Eduardo Velasquez, Kevin Honeycutt, and Christopher Edelman.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P506
ISBN: 9780881465297
Price: $24.00
Adam Smith is best known for his magisterial Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, but his other great work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is as deserving of serious study. In this volume, scholars in economics, philosophy, and political science take up questions that range throughout Smith’s work, seeking to find connections between his moral theory and political economy. This volume, based on the 2013 A. V. Elliot Conference on Great Books and Ideas at Mercer University, represents a great diversity of disciplinary perspectives. Its authors take up a wide range of concerns that exist in the intersection of Smith’s political and moral theory. It also includes several articles that attempt to compare his work to thinkers that preceded and followed him, coming from as far back in the tradition as the Italian Renaissance, and moving forward in history to claim Smith’s relevance for contemporary research in experimental economics.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P524
ISBN: 9780881465631
Price: $24.00
THE MOST SACRED FREEDOM includes eight essays that were first presented at the 2014 A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas, the seventh annual conference sponsored by Mercer University’s Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles. Together, these essays explore the great principle of religious liberty by charting its development in the Western tradition and reconsidering its place at America’s founding.
The major themes addressed include the theological and epistemological preconditions of religious liberty, the chief challenges to securing this liberty, the problematic but necessary role of religion in a free society, and the constitutional framework that has been handed down to us to help preserve this most sacred freedom.
Contributors to the volume are Steven Grosby, Jeremiah H. Russell, Maura Jane Farrelly, Daniel Cullen, John Witte, Jr., Scott Yenor, David Ramsey, and Michael Novak.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P523
ISBN: 9780881466195
Price: $24.00
PROMISE AND PERIL includes eight essays that were first presented at the 2015 A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas, the eighth annual conference sponsored by Mercer University’s Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles. Together, these essays explore the idea of republicanism across the history of political thought, focusing especially on the challenges and dilemmas endemic to popular government.
Contributors include Evanthia Speliotis, Mark Shiffman, Benjamin Storey, Andrea Kowalchuk, Michelle A. Schwarze, James R. Zink, Lise van Boxel, Christine Dunn Henderson, and Aristide Tessitore.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P568
ISBN: 9780881466607
Price: $24.00
WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS includes eight essays that were first presented at the 2016 A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas, the ninth annual conference sponsored by Mercer University's Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America's Founding Principles. 1776 was a momentous year. Contributors include W.B. Allen, Jane E. Calvert, Adam Potkay, Dennis C. Rasmussen, James H. Read, Diana Schaub, Scott Philip Segrest, and Brian Steele.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P578
ISBN: 9780881466959
Price: $24.00
Based on the 2017 A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas, this volume gathers ten scholarly essays on the great Athenian historian, Thucydides, and his influence on the founders of the American republic. Contributors explore Thucydides’ insights into the challenges of democratic governance, especially for a wealthy and powerful state, what they meant to the American Founders, and why they continue to be relevant today.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P604
ISBN: 9780881467444
Price: $24.00
The current era of intense partisan conflict is unlikely to be remembered for the excellence of its public discourse. Given this fact, we do well to remind ourselves that Americans were once capable of debating even the most important political questions in the popular press, and doing so at an extraordinarily high level. The debate over the ratification of the Constitution in 1787–1788 enlisted some of the country's greatest minds, and wrestled with issues fundamental to popular government in general and to the United States constitutional order in particular.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P623
ISBN: 9780881467857
Price: $25.00
In this volume of essays, based on the 2019 A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas at Mercer University, eleven scholars take up some of the complex questions that emerge when one considers carefully how Plato presents democracy and liberty in the dialogues, particularly in terms of the threats they seem to pose to justice and philosophy.
Contributors include Peter Ahrensdorf, Jennifer Baker, Khalil Habib, Kevin Honeycutt, Alex Priou, Richard Ruderman, Nicholas D. Smith, Devin Stauffer, Mary Townsend, Jeffrey Dirk Wilson, and Catherine Zuckert.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P640
ISBN: 9780881468373
Price: $25.00
The dominant public philosophy of the United States of America has long been some version of liberalism dedicated to individual liberty, equal rights, religious freedom, government by consent, and established limits on political power. Today, however, we find ourselves in unusual times, when the major political parties have powerful and growing wings that embrace decidedly illiberal public philosophies. What seems new here is not the critiques themselves, but the power and popularity of political movements that openly and proudly reject the first principles of America's long-dominant public philosophy. This book proposes to return with fresh eyes to the beginning of liberalism and the political philosophy of John Locke. Instead of looking at Lockean liberalism as a simple and timeworn ideological program, the essays reexamine Locke's project by remaining alive to the complexity and nuance with which he addressed his subject.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P667
ISBN: 9780881468823
Price: $12.00
Mercer University's Thomas and Ramona McDonald Center for America's Founding Principles exists to encourage the study of the texts and ideas that have been instrumental in shaping the regime of the United States of America. This short volume includes four texts that not only articulate the regime's highest ideals, but provide a lasting framework for governance, and offer a glimpse of the centuries-long struggle to realize those ideals more fully.
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Publisher: Mercer University Press
Product Code: P693
ISBN: 9780881469264
Price: $25.00
Xenophon (430-354 BCE) was a man of many modes: follower of Socrates, Athenian General, friend to Sparta, philosopher, political theorist, military historian, and writer. This collection of essays explores his writings across three genres, all of which he blends into one another: philosophical dialogue, political theory, and history. This collection is based on the 2022 A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas, sponsored by The Thomas C. and Ramon E. McDonald Center for America's Founding Principles at Mercer University.
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