Harvey Mansfield, The Rise and Fall of Rational Control: The History of Modern Political Philosophy (2025)

This was a challenging book to read, and now to write about. Mansfield gives a very close reading to eight thinkers of what he calls "rational control:" Machiavelli, who initiated modern political theory; Hobbes; Locke; Rousseau; Kant; Hegel; Marx; and Nietzsche. I often found myself struggling to follow Mansfield's interpretations. Partly, perhaps, this was because I simply knew much less about most of these thinkers than I had assumed. Partly, perhaps, because Mansfield, a Straussian, offered idiosyncratic takes, at least some of the time - but when? (Straussians posit the ability to decipher hidden meanings in the great works, which speak to each other, but not to the common man). And partly, finally, because Mansfield sometimes didn't explain key terms and assumptions sufficiently clearly, at least for my taste. For example, what was the ancient and medieval thinking that Machiavelli was rejecting? Eventually, Mansfield mentions virtue (including justice and nobility), natural law, and God. And what does rational control mean, exactly? Often, Mansfield set this idea aside and focused on apparently related ideas, such as "necessity" (in the case of Machiavelli) - without explicating the connection. Necessity, it seems, means self-preservation. I don't know whether other political philosophers would agree that Machiavelli is as pivotal as Mansfield makes out. Or for the reasons Mansfield gives. I wish I'd taken Mansfield's course, which provides the basis for the book, when I was an undergrad and had the chance to discuss the ideas in section. Even better, I wish I'd first taken his complementary course on ancient and medieval political thought. (Of course, as an undergrad, I'd be even less prepared to follow his argument than now.) One of the truly new ideas for me was Mansfield's argument that Rousseau - not Hegel - had historicized reason. At the end of the book, Mansfield surprised me. I thought he might argue for a return to the ancient emphasis on virtue. But instead he suggests we need a "reworked liberalism," one that emphasizes individual honor rather than materal accumulation.