The City and Sex examines American political sex scandals at the national level. Studying these events over time with an emphasis on the evolving responses of both statesmen and citizens reveals the republic's deteriorating moral health and illuminates the country's dangerous tendency toward servitude. Using scandals as a window through which to glimpse our deterioration, the book identifies a trajectory of decline beginning in the twentieth century, by which Americans became less tutored in virtue, less spirited in citizenship, less agreed on questions of moral significance, and ultimately less dexterous in exercising the skills of self-government. It seeks to show that the freedom from virtue won through the collapse of moral standards has produced an American citizenry increasingly prone to the kind of dependence and enslavement Alexis de Tocqueville cautioned against in the 1830s.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: American Virtue
Chapter 2: Scandals Over Time
Chapter 3: Ancient Scandals
Chapter 4: Modernity Burgeons
Chapter 5: Thoroughly Modern Pathologies
Chapter 6: A Post-Modern Presidency
Chapter 7: Disinterring Skeletons
Conclusion
Appendixes
Notes
Bibliography
