Why do we need books about courage and civic virtue, written by ancient philosophers in an idiom so difficult for moderns such as ourselves to understand? How could such books be relevant in post–9/11 days? The whole world saw civic courage right before their eyes in the aftermath of the Twin Towers' attack. The last thing one would think Americans needed today is instruction in what constitutes courage or civic virtue more generally. Yet Americans would be decidedly wrong in thinking so skeptically. The books under review demonstrate why.

As Linda Rabieh shows in the opening chapters of her splendid book, it is precisely because of events such as 9/11 that we need a greater clarity as to what constitutes courage. For shortly after the dust had settled, both domestic and foreign commentators began to cast doubt on the courage of the men involved in the rescue and recovery. Susan Sontag, feminist theorist, and Bill Maher, late-night talk show host, both attributed courage to the terrorists who flew the airplanes into the towers. Rather than simply take them to task for their comments, the author shows how they brought out the ambiguous complexity that is attached to the concept of courage. What we all saw was not the whole of it. How can courage be attributed to something so manifestly evil: the willful killing of innocent women and men? It is precisely because Plato is so remote from us in time that his thoughts on this matter are exactly relevant to the proper understanding of courage. Rabieh does an outstanding job in this scholarly book.

It is difficult to summarize a book that is itself a kind of summary that traces the many rhetorical feints, retreats, and subtle advances between mature men deeply concerned about teaching the young. The author proceeds through two Platonic dialogues as if she is untangling a knotted ball composed of twisted multicolored cords. Laches and Nicias, at times impatiently, hang tight on one or two of the colored cords and try to argue that the ball gets its strength from one or both of those cords to the exclusion of the others. However, Socrates resists and shows how all the colored cords derive their strength from the unseen unity of the ball. If courage is a virtue, it must somehow be a part of prudence and wisdom, and it must participate in the noble, the just, and the good. Rabieh shows lucidly that “despite the differences in their treatment of courage, the Laches and the Republic together yield a single teaching about courage: courage properly understood is both the cause and the consequence of wisdom” (p. 161). At the end of the Laches, the reader ascends continually to the conclusion that the proper understanding of courage implies an important element of nobility.

From here, the author leads the reader through Plato's Republic, where the virtue of courage is explored in the full light of justice and wisdom and its place in the life of the philosopher. From the peak discussion of courage in the Republic, Rabieh begins her descent in the final chapter to confront the question: What can our students, today, learn from these two Platonic dialogues? The answer: a great deal more than they could learn from any other source. Her account of the dangers and promises attendant upon the rise of spiritedness is especially instructive. She shows graphically how spiritedness must be tamed and shaped by the character of the regime.

The great strength of this book is that it is a work of first rate classical and philosophical scholarship; the author knows the language of the Greek text and is sensitive to its philosophical content. Rabieh provides students with a thoroughly lucid guide through the labyrinth of two Platonic dialogues on an issue of enduring human interest. She brings to the discussion of this rough manly virtue a gentility that both charms and tames the reader, just as prudence tames spiritedness without destroying courage.

Rabieh's conclusion comes as a disappointment only because, having provided so much illuminating commentary, she appears to suggest that her work has just begun. For she seems to suggest that we must find a mediator between the wisdom of ancient philosophic understandings of courage and the contemporary exhortations to courage such as those found in John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage (1956) and John McCain's Why Courage Matters (1999). There is no question that she is right. However, we are left with the hope that Rabieh will now turn her attention to just such a project. I can think of few people more gifted in writing and reasoning than she for such an important task. This splendid book is a good place to begin.

Susan Collins's challenging book is premised in the proposition that “citizenship” somehow or other got lost and is in need of rediscovery. She does a masterful job of rediscovery. Aristotle and the Rediscovery of Citizenship is a work of reflective scholarship and ought to be read by every student of democracy, especially by those who profess to have solved the problems associated with citizenship. Collins's book is a careful and reflective dialogue with the leading participants in the great debate over democratic citizenship. John Rawls, Richard Rorty, Amy Gutmann, Dennis Thompson, Michael Sandel, and lesser figures, are called before the court of Aristotle, where the ancient master subjects each in turn to a hard-hitting engagement. It is not at any time a contest between equals. Reading this book is like watching Tiny Tim being punched up by Mohammed Ali in his prime. There is no contest, and Collins has done future generations a great service by showing how to read Aristotle and how relevant he is today in the ongoing debate over citizenship and the demands of justice. She shows that by taking our bearings from the proponents of modern liberalism, we are barred from “exploring, if not experiencing, the possibility that the best life consists in noble and just action on behalf of fellow citizens and friends” (p. 173). For modern generations, “the question at the heart of Aristotle's political philosophy—the question of the best life—necessarily disappears, as does the answer that the morally serious life is the end of the political community and the highest human good” (p. 173). Even those who allegedly embrace Aristotle, Collins shows, merely flirt with the shell, leaving the kernel or the substance of the virtues and citizenship unacknowledged and unappreciated. For Aristotle, the just regime is one in which “the best life” has a hard core of moral virtue. She also reveals that modern liberalism's replacement of “way of life” with “lifestyle” is not one of mere semantics: The best life rests on permanence in nature, whereas lifestyles change with the latest fad. In this respect, I think Collins should have exposed the hedonistic core of modern liberalism, having exposed in a lucid manner how moral virtue resides at the core of the Aristotelian regime.

Taking these two books together, Collins has set for herself the more difficult task. By setting out to recover citizenship, she necessarily undertook a comprehensive account of Aristotle on citizenship that entails, as she shows lucidly, an account of justice, wisdom, and the good. This is no small ambition. However, she succeeds with an uncommon gentility. No question about it, however, where Plato feints, Aristotle punches. No wonder modern liberals avoid the contest with Aristotle. Many years ago, Douglas Bush claimed that a scholar is like a siren that draws attention to the fog without doing anything to dispel it. He was wrong. True scholars, like Rabieh and Collins, do much to dispel the fog. Their scholarship is impeccable and will endure as an example of how to read and profit from the peerless writings of Plato and Aristotle. Both books demonstrate admirably how ancient political philosophy can shed light on contemporary problems in a manner far removed from the prejudices of our own times. These two women scholars have much to teach us about courage and citizenship. However, caveat lector, there is an important subtext working here: Both Rabieh and Collins are challenging (Rabieh explicitly and Collins implicitly) a dominant feminist position on courage and citizenship that tends to scorn the need for courage as an extension of the misplaced masculine quest for transcendence. The feminist chant is that men misguidedly seek “honor” and “glory,” which frequently lead to war. Unfortunately, Collins fails to show how women can contribute to the manly function of courageous guardians without which male citizens become effeminate, which is exactly what modern feminists would wish.