Choice Review

Like Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century, Bernard Mandeville believed that the fabric of society was held together by a system of negative emotions such as envy, competition, and exploitation. Mandeville is best known for The Fable of the Bees, published in its entirety in 1728, a masterwork that has been the cause of bitter controversy ever since because critics have seen it as an "unsubdued mutiny in moral philosophy." Hundert's book is dedicated to revising that reputation. Hundert (Univ. of British Columbia) has written a searching work of rehabilitation, interpreting the Fable as a central force in the moral philosophy of the 18th-century Enlightenment. Rather than accept the commonplace understanding that Mandeville represented a cynical rejection of the science of humanity, Hundert sees the Fable as an intimate part of the Enlightenment's effort to understand humankind as it really is, and not as Christian moral philosophy would have us believe. The interpretation that emerges from these learned pages places Mandeville next to Hume and, to a lesser extent, was meant to provide us with a disenchanted view of "unsocial yet socialized man." This is a sophisticated study: the research is meticulous, the arguments carefully nuanced, and the prose impressive. Recommended for advanced undergraduates and graduates. V. G. Wexler; University of Maryland, Baltimore County