Introduction
1. The New Adam: The Philosopher’s Sleight-of-Hand
2. The New Order: Hidden Mastery
3. Authenticity: The Greatest Thing in the World
4. Civility: Suppressing the Human Self
5. The Deterioration of Civility: When Everything Becomes
Political
6. Living among the Ruins: The Disintegration of the Social
Bond
Bibliography
Ann Hartle is professor emeritus of philosophy at Emory University. She is the author of numerous books, including Montaigne and the Origins of Modern Philosophy and Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher.
“The insistent point of What Happened to Civility—that civility is
collapsing as enlightenment ideology’s relentless advance swamps
the premodern, traditional sources of nobility and mercy that
Montaigne relied upon to create civility in the first place—is new,
true, and significant.” —Benjamin Storey, co-author of Why We Are
Restless
“No other book-length treatment of Montaigne’s notion of civility
exists. Hartle succeeds admirably well in showing that Montaigne’s
conception of civility helped to shape modern self-understanding in
significant ways.” —John C. McCarthy, editor of Modern
Enlightenment and the Rule of Reason
"Time spent with this book will be rewarded, both with a heightened
sense of the importance of civility to human happiness and wonder
for the artistry of a great essayist like Montaigne." —The American
Conservative
"The book is a good contribution to a troubling debate, and one
with which Montaigne himself would have been pleased." —Church
Times
“Ann Hartle analyzes the reasons for the contemporary decay of
civility, which was given its modern formulation 'out of the
fragments of the shattered classical-Christian tradition' in
Montaigne’s Essays. She goes on to consider 'what has been lost in
the movement from sacred tradition as the social bond' to its
secular form, notably a 'public standard of moral virtue.'"
—Choice
Ann Hartle’s What Happened to Civility offers an inviting
proposition: civility should be understood as a human invention and
therefore is ultimately doomed to failure. —Perspectives on
Politics
"Hartle’s focus on civility as the key to understanding Montaigne’s
contribution to modernity is original." —Review of Politics
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