Description
Book SynopsisFor a century and a half artists and intellectuals of Europe have scorned the bourgeoisie. Applying a tradition of "virtue ethics" to our lives in modern economies, this title affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations.
Trade Review"Deirdre McCloskey's unfashionable, contrarian, and compelling manifesto in favor of what she calls the bourgeois virtues starts with an uncompromising 'apology' for how private property, free labor, free trade, and prudent calculation are the font of most ethical good in modern society, not a moral threat to it....She writes with wonderful ease. Her style is conversational and lively, sometimes even cheeky, so that even the toughest concepts seem palatable." - Matt Ridley, Wall Street Journal "An impressive collection of intellectual riches." - Alan Ryan, New York Review of Books"
