'David Elliot offers a penetrating account of hope rooted in the thought of Aquinas that would impress even the most ardent Thomist. Yet he capaciously engages a great breadth of the Western intellectual tradition from the Greeks and Romans, through Nietzsche, to contemporary scholars including John Bowlin, Jeffrey Stout, and Timothy Jackson. He manages to recover long-neglected resources from the tradition on hope - such as despair, presumption, and worldliness - in a manner both intellectually robust and readily practically applicable. On top of all this Elliot writes simply exquisite prose. With this book Elliot joins Josef Pieper in setting the standard for scholarship on hope.' William C. Mattison III, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
1. The Eudaimonia gap; 2. The theological virtue of hope in Aquinas; 3. Rejoicing in hope; 4. Presumption and moral reform; 5. Despair and consolation; 6. The problem of worldliness; 7. Hope and the Earthly City; Bibliography; Notes; Index.