When Louis XVI presented Benjamin Franklin with a snuff box encrusted with diamonds and inset with the King’s portrait, the gift troubled Americans: it threatened to “corrupt” Franklin by clouding his judgment or altering his attitude toward the French in subtle psychological ways. This broad understanding of political corruption—rooted in ideals of civic virtue—was a driving force at the Constitutional Convention.

What was the relationship between woman and politics in seventeenth-century England? Responding to this question, Conspiracy and Virtue argues that theoretical exclusion of women from the political sphere shaped their relation to it. Rather than producing silence, this exclusion generated rich, complex, and oblique political involvements which this study traces through the writings of both men and women. Pursuing this argument Conspiracy and Virtue engages the main writings on women's relationship to the political sphere including debates on the public sphere and on contract theory

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Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

The three Great Premises of Idiot America:

· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units

· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough

· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it

This collection of essays on objectivism sets down Ayn Rand's views on individual rights and challenges listeners on all sides of the political fence to consider their views. Although published in 1961 and aimed at the Cold War world, the essays hold up well and often seem related to today's issues and headlines. Most of Rand's barbs are aimed at liberals, but conservatives also draw fire for faltering in defense of liberties and the Constitution. C.M. Herbert reads with a passion and confidence that seems to personify Rand. One especially well-read passage depicts a hypothetical conversation in which she defends her views to a critic.

An ambitious, original work, The Politics of Sociability is Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann's exploration of the social and political significance of Freemasonry in German history. Drawing on de Tocqueville's theory that without civic virtue there is no civil society, and that civic virtue unfolds only through the social interaction between citizens, Hoffmann examines the critical link between Freemasonry and the evolution of German civil society in the late nineteenth century. The practice of Masonic sociability reflected an enlightened belief in the political significance of moral virtue for civil society