For seven seasons, AMC's Mad Men captivated audiences with the story of Don Draper, an advertising executive whose personal and professional successes and failures took viewers on a roller coaster ride through America's tumultuous 1960s. More than just a television show about one of advertising's "bad boys," the series investigates the principles of the American regime, exploring whether or not the American Dream is a sustainable vision of human flourishing and happiness. This collection of essays investigates the show's engagement with the philosophic and political foundations of American...

Recovering Hegel from the Critique of Leo Srauss offers a defense of modernity against the critique of the influential mid-twentieth century political philosopher, Leo Strauss. Strauss, whose influence on contemporary conservative political theory is well documented, discovered the ground of much of what he found wanting in contemporary political and social life to lie in the philosophy of the 19th century German philosopher, G. W. F. Hegel. Specifically, Strauss accused Hegel of being the greatest exponent of historicism and thus the relativism that afflicts modern thought. Ultimately,...

This book explores the understanding of freedom developed in the later novels of celebrated Canadian author, David Adams Richards. Many reviewers highlight two interconnected features in Richards novels: a seemingly rigid determinism of setting and sociodemographics, and a resulting hopelessness. In contrast, Richards describes the quest of human life and the purpose of his novels as a search for freedom. This book explores the account of freedom that is developed through the course of four of Richards's works: The Friends of Meager Fortune, Mercy Among the Children, The Lost Highway, and...