Augustine and the limits of politics
By: Jean Bethke Elshtain.
Series: Frank M. Covey, Jr., Loyola lectures in political analysis series
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Notre Dame, Ind
Language: eng
Number of pages: 143
Subjects: Augustine, -- Saint, Bishop of Hippo.
Description: What is our business "within this common mortal life?" Augustine asks and bids us to ask ourselves. What can Augustine possibly have to say about the conditions that characterize our contemporary society and appear to put democracy in crisis? Who is Augustine for us now and what do his words have to do with political theory?

These are the underlying questions that animate Jean Bethke Elshtain's fascinating engagement with the thought and work of Augustine, the ancient thinker who gave no political theory per se and refused to offer up a positive utopia. In exploring the questions, Why Augustine? Why now? Elshtain brings Augustine's thought into the contemporary political arena and presents an Augustine who created a complex moral map that offers space for loyalty, love, and care, as well as a chastened form of civic virtue.

The result is a controversial book about one of the world's greatest and more complex thinkers, one whose thought continues to haunt all of Western political philosophy.