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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2007
Aristotle and the Rediscovery of Citizenship. By Susan D. Collins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 206p. $70.00.
Plato and the Virtue of Courage. By Linda R. Rabieh. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. 224p. $45.00.
Why do we need books about courage and civic virtue, written by ancient philosophers in an idiom so difficult for moderns such as ourselves to understand? How could such books be relevant in post–9/11 days? The whole world saw civic courage right before their eyes in the aftermath of the Twin Towers' attack. The last thing one would think Americans needed today is instruction in what constitutes courage or civic virtue more generally. Yet Americans would be decidedly wrong in thinking so skeptically. The books under review demonstrate why.