As Mary Ann Glendon writes in this fascinating new book, the relationship between politics and the academy has been fraught with tension and regret-and the occasional brilliant success-since Plato himself.
In The Forum and the Tower, Glendon examines thinkers who have collaborated with leaders, from ancient Syracuse to the modern White House, in a series of brisk portraits that explore the meeting of theory and reality. Glendon discusses a roster of great names, from Edmund Burke to Alexis de Tocqueville, Machiavelli to Rousseau, John Locke to Max Weber, down to Charles Malik, who helped...