Books by Pierre Manent

Highlighting social tensions that confront the liberal tradition, this book draws a portrait of what we, citizens of modern liberal democracies, have become. It argues that the frequent incapacity of the morally neutral, democratic state to further social causes derives from the liberal stance that political life does not serve a higher purpose.

Argues that the West has rejected the laws of God and of nature in a quest for human autonomy. This book contends that, in declaring ourselves free and autonomous, we have, paradoxically, lost a sense of what it means to be human. It offers an analysis of the confusions and contradictions at the heart of the modern condition.