In this Book
- Extreme Virtue: Truth and Leadership in Five Great American Lives
- Book
- 2003
- Published by: State University of New York Press
summary
Extreme Virtue presents a new and radical approach to the problems of leadership and virtue in public life. Originating in the author’s newspaper writing about the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, the book grapples with what has gone wrong in the American political system and describes what we should look for in our leaders. Sartwell argues that the real problem is a pervasive lack of truth in political leaders and that more can be accomplished by straight talk than by polling and focus groups.
The book consists of biographical portraits of five great Americans: anarchists Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre, conservative senator Barry Goldwater, Lakota spiritual leader John Fire Lame Deer, and black nationalist Malcolm X. The author argues that what makes these figures distinctively American is that each shares a suspicion of power and a vision of individual liberation. Despite their distinctive and unique approaches, each person is a model of truth in public life.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Extreme Virtue
- pp. iii-v
- Introduction
- pp. 1-21
- 1. Emma’s Passion (Commitment)
- pp. 23-44
- 5. Furious Purity: Malcolm’s Truth
- pp. 111-133
Additional Information
ISBN
9780791486191
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
56408587
Pages
149
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No