Why Cicero Matters

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Why Cicero Matters shows us how the Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius, better known as Cicero, can help realize a new political world. A complex person, Cicero blended insecurity with bravado, hesitancy with courage and unscrupulous deeds with highly principled action. His impact on humanitarianism, the Enlightenment, and the Founding Fathers of America is immense. Yet we give Julius Caesar all our attention. Why? What does this say about modern politics and political culture?

This book gives us Cicero as an antidote to the myth of the strong man of history. Reading Cicero’s The Republic alongside two more introspective philosophical texts, On Friendship and On Old Age, we see how Cicero turned politics into a higher, intellectual form of art, believing in education, in culture, and above all in the power of philosophy to instill morality. Cicero has reassuring words on the indispensable work philosophers make, and why the common good needs philosophy. He reminds us how philosophy can contribute to politics, political activism and political participation.

In an age when anti-intellectualism runs rampant, Why Cicero Matters introduces us to an ancient thinker who argues culture is, or ought to be, the foundation of any modern democracy, and books its building blocks.

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