Pierre Manent
Pierre Manent is professor emeritus of political philosophy at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He is the author of numerous books, including Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy, The City of Man, A World Beyond Politics?, Metamorphoses of the City: On the Western Dynamic, and Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason.

​The Tragedy of the Republic

"​Beginning with his early studies on liberalism, explorations of the political-theological problem, a fine study on the thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, and continuing through his more recent work in defense of the nation and a reconsideration of natural law, Manent has warned against the modern temptation to empty the public arena of the essential activity of politics. For Manent, politics is the inevitable and inescapable activity for creatures who can neither arrive at exact answers to the complex human condition, nor develop the technological techniques to avoid contentious debate, hard questions, unsatisfying compromise, and uncertain decisions. In sum, we are not creatures who can abandon the effort to discern together the common good."
—Patrick J. Deenen, from his preface to Manent's essay, The Tragedy of the Republic