Manliness

Manliness is a book by conservative-leaning Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield, who identifies and extols this trait which has been recognized since Ancient Greece.

An entertaining read, the book is short on culture and American political history (except talks extensively about Teddy Roosevelt), while long in academic arguments based on literature. Professor Mansfield points out that Macbeth contains Shakespeare's most praise of manliness and has many enlightening discussions of literature, such as a passage about Henry James' anti-feminist Bostonians.

Mansfield sees manliness in athletes (too many to mention, he points out), and also in a few women such as Margaret Thatcher (a favorite of right-of-center professors).

The book is excellent but has notable omissions: no mention of muscle cars, by which young American men found expression of their manliness in culture. The book admittedly avoids the issue of homosexuality, and it predates the rise of the very manly Donald Trump. The book has only a very superficial reference to Phyllis Schlafly and fails to recognize the significance of the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment.

10th anniversary interview

Mansfield chose to mark the tenth anniversary of the book's publication by giving a c.75min interview about it to Bill Kristol for the Foundation for Constitutional Government. A transcript and audio podcast are also available for download at the website.