This book deals with a concern of how humanity performs toward itself and how it performs within the public realm, and where it must be in relation with others. Public life is not solely about politics but also the political, i.e., intellectual, moral, economic, religious, and collective habits—including fashions and amusements, artefacts, histories, and legacies. This book argues that man raison d'être in worldly life is to have a civil presence and create civilization. It contends that what makes it possible is the coming together of “presence, ethos, and...