{"product_id":"ambition-a-history-from-vice-to-virtue-9780300182804","title":"Ambition, a History: From Vice to Virtue","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAmbition, a History: From Vice to Virtue\u003c\/strong\u003e by King, William Casey. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780300182804.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom log house to White House enslaved to liberator ghetto to office of the CEO ambition drives the American Dream. Americans are a nation of people driven by ambition. Yet at the time of the nations founding ambition was viewed as a dangerous vice sometimes described as a canker on the soul or the cause of Adams fall. This engaging book explores ambitions surprising transformation tracing attitudes from classical antiquity to early Modern Europe to the Anglo-American world and Americas formative days. From this broad historical perspective William King deepens our understanding of the American mythos and offers a striking reinterpretation of the Introduction to the Declaration of Independence.\nThrough an innovative array of sources and authors - Aquinas Dante Machiavelli the Geneva Bible Marlowe Shakespeare Thomas Jefferson among many others - King demonstrates that a transformed view of ambition became possible the moment Europe realized that Columbus had discovered not a new route but a new world. In addition the author argues that reconstituting ambition as a virtue was a necessary precondition of the American Republic. Even so ambition has never lost its ties to vice and the book considers the dual nature of ambition in the twenty-first century when the trait may be deemed positive or negative depending upon the ends the means and the individual involved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Yale University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946175983669,"sku":"ByrdShop_0300182805","price":42.24,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780300182804_e6bdda53-7a5d-457d-b495-964682c86d93.jpg?v=1778652201","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/ambition-a-history-from-vice-to-virtue-9780300182804","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}