Modernity and its discontents : making and unmaking the bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow /

In 16 chapters, Smith (Yale) narrates a course of study in Enlightenment political and social theory and its critics. Centering on the mind and moral psychology of the bourgeoisie, Smith's organizing texts include work by three novelists (Gustave Flaubert, Giuseppe Lampedusa, Saul Bellow). Presuming largely American auditors, chapters on Benjamin Franklin, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Leo Strauss link education in the liberal arts to citizenship in a liberal-constitutional state and a democratic culture and society. Each chapter, from Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau through Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, and Isaiah Berlin, is a master class on the relationship between academic scholarship and text-centered teaching, linked by a shared concern with the blessings and curses of the modern self in its quest for intellectual coherence and moral significance. Smith's civic teachings are complemented by Harry Clor, On Moderation: Defending an Ancient Virtue in a Modern World (CH, Jan'09, 46-2925). Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (1997), augments Smith's argument that American modernity was spared much of the philosophical and political excess of the European radical Enlightenment and, therefore, the reactionary and totalitarian features of the Counter-Enlightenment. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Eldon John Eisenach, University of Tulsa

UNBELIEVABLE: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History, by Katy Tur. (Dey St./William Morrow, $16.99.) During the 2016 presidential campaign, Tur, an NBC news correspondent, was a favorite target of Donald J. Trump. Her book was published almost a year after the election; now, updated with a new introduction, it's a useful testament as Trump's attacks on the press continue unabated. IMPROVEMENT, by Joan Silber. (Counterpoint, $16.95.) This novel of interconnected story lines centers on Reyna, a single mother drawn into a cigarettesmuggling scheme by her boyfriend, imprisoned at Rikers. The book expands to encompass 1970s Turkey, Reyna's aunt and antiquities smugglers. Our reviewer, Kamila Shamsie, called the novel one "of richness and wisdom and huge pleasure." GHOSTS OF THE INNOCENT MAN: A True Story of Trial and Redemption, by Benjamin Rachlin. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $17.99.) In 1980s North Carolina, Willie Grimes, an African-American man, was found guilty of rape, despite a thin case against him. Rachlin's profile of Grimes and his 25-year struggle to convince people of his innocence gives resonance and depth to an all-too-common problem. A LIFE OF ADVENTURE AND DELIGHT: Stories, by Akhil Sharma. (Norton, $15.95.) In tales that leap from Delhi to New York, men behave callously (or worse); marriages dissolve unhappily; and immigrants adapt to new societal expectations. At times, Sharma's "cultural detail feels like an airing of secrets," our reviewer, Adrian Tomine, wrote. "It's a testament to the author's sensitive eye for human foibles that these characters are not only palatable but relatable, and this feat of empathy makes the implicit critique sting even more." MODERNITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois From Machiavelli to Bellow, by Steven B. Smith. (Yale, $30.) What does it mean to be modern? This intellectual survey considers the question through the work of writers like Spinoza, Hegel and Nietzsche. Smith, a professor at Yale, arrives at some dour conclusions, but is skilled at bringing abstract concepts to light. A BOY IN WINTER, by Rachel Seiffert. (Vintage, $16.) It's 1941 and Hitler's armies are sweeping across a Ukrainian town. Two Jewish brothers, Yankei and Momik, are hiding out against their father's wishes. Seiffert draws on real wartime accounts in her novel; the story unfolds over three days as the town's residents - including a German engineer and a Ukrainian girl who hides the children - confront wrenching moral choices.