Politicians and Moralists of the Nineteenth Century

Emile Faguet's "Politicians and Moralists of the Nineteenth Century" is a sharp, intellectually vivid study of how nineteenth-century political life and moral thinking continuously shaped—and challenged—each other. Faguet traces the changing moral temper of the era through its major voices, showing how politicians did not simply “apply” ethics, but constantly negotiated, justified, and sometimes distorted moral ideals in the heat of public life. By placing writers and thinkers in their historical context, he reveals the tensions between lofty principles and practical power, between universal claims and national realities, and between sincerity and strategy. The book reads like a guided tour through the moral imagination of the century. Politicians and Moralists of the Nineteenth Century is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1899.