Ingratiation from the Renaissance to the Present
The Art and Ethics of Gaining Favor
By (author) Jeff Diamond
Publication date:
21 June 2017Length of book:
236 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498548892
Ingratiation from the Renaissance to the Present explores a common ethical problem for intellectuals of the Renaissance: How does one win the favor and patronage of the wealthy and powerful and yet maintain one’s dignity, independence, or principles? This study examines this and similar ethical dilemmas and how they were reflected in the lives and writings of intellectuals of the period—particularly Niccolò Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, and Michel de Montaigne. It also places the issues within their larger social and cultural context and provides comparisons to the contemporary world.
Jeff Diamond’s Ingratiation from the Renaissance to the Presentexplores the limits of personal adaptation during the early modern period. The book offers fascinating glimpses into how writers grappled with an issue usually associated with recent and current business people. The book’s broad literary basis shows the ubiquity of its themes to period thinkers. . . . Literary scholars and intellectual historians of the early modern period will benefit from this book’s thoughtful case studies of Machiavelli, Erasmus, More, and Montaigne.