Synopses & Reviews
Each chapter of this book treats a particular historical or contemporary topic of civic concern. Some are centered on current family crises and issues (the “family wage,” child abuse, the “new eugenics”) while others look to the wider national and international polity. Yet each, insistently, returns to common themes: the many faces and forms of power; struggles for autonomy; the need for human sociality and community.
Elshtain’s essays on controversial domestic subjects demonstrate her independence of mind, her understanding of politics as the art of the possible, and her openness to debate.
In the last section, related essays on women’s power and powerlessness, on patriotism, and on just war track a movement from domestic politics to foreign affairs. They are cautionary tales which simultaneously express realizable hopes and honor those, like the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina, who have taught us, through their desperation and triumph, what it means to fashion a politics of hope and justice against a politics of vengeance and despair.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-193) and index.
About the Author
Jean Bethke Elshtain is Centennial Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. Among her best-known works are Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought and Women and War.
Table of Contents
A return to Hull House : reflections on Jane Addams -- The vexation of Weil -- Eleanor Roosevelt as activist and thinker : "the lady" and the life of duty -- The family and civic life -- The family crisis, the family wage, and feminism : historical and theoretical considerations -- The family crisis and state intervention : the construction of child abuse as social problem and popular rhetoric -- The new eugenics and feminist quandaries : philosophical and political reflections -- Relying on nature : are you eligible for membership in Allan Bloom's fraternity? -- Pornography politics -- The power and powerlessness of women -- Realism, just war, and the witness of peace -- On patriotism.