{"product_id":"power-pleasure-and-profit-insatiable-appetites-from-machiavelli-to-madison-9780674976672","title":"Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA provocative history of the changing values that have given rise to our present discontents.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWe pursue power, pleasure, and profit. We want as much as we can get, and we deploy instrumental reasoning--cost-benefit analysis--to get it. We judge ourselves and others by how well we succeed. It is a way of life and thought that seems natural, inevitable, and inescapable. As David Wootton shows, it is anything but. In \u003ci\u003ePower, Pleasure, and Profit\u003c\/i\u003e, he traces an intellectual and cultural revolution that replaced the older systems of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality with the iron cage of instrumental reasoning that now gives shape and purpose to our lives. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWootton guides us through four centuries of Western thought--from Machiavelli to Madison--to show how new ideas about politics, ethics, and economics stepped into a gap opened up by religious conflict and the Scientific Revolution. As ideas about godliness and Aristotelian virtue faded, theories about the rational pursuit of power, pleasure, and profit moved to the fore in the work of writers both obscure and as famous as Hobbes, Locke, and Adam Smith. The new instrumental reasoning cut through old codes of status and rank, enabling the emergence of movements for liberty and equality. But it also helped to create a world in which virtue, honor, shame, and guilt count for almost nothing, and what matters is success. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIs our world better for the rise of instrumental reasoning? To answer that question, Wootton writes, we must first recognize that we live in its grip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e David Wootton\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Belknap Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/08\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 400\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.60lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.30h x 6.40w x 1.20d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780674976672\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/01\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/01\/2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWootton, David:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - David Wootton is Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York. His books include \u003ci\u003eThe Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution;\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eBad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm since Hippocrates\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003ePaolo Sarpi: Between Renaissance and Enlightenment\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Belknap Press","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43128126898291,"sku":"9.78067E+12","price":43.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/files\/img_1527ec4b-14bf-496c-88e6-ca2225a09cec.jpg?v=1749731267","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/en-de\/products\/power-pleasure-and-profit-insatiable-appetites-from-machiavelli-to-madison-9780674976672","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}