Cunning (Hardcover)

by Don Herzog (Author) "I do not marvel in any ways to see such a multitude of people assembled . . . to behold the unfortunate tragedy of this..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Clarendon Press, Princeton University Press (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
What is cunning, and how did it develop a pejorative connotation? Herzog, a professor of law and political philosophy at the University of Michigan and author of, most recently, Poisoning the Minds of the Lower Orders, applies his erudite style and barbed humor to this examination of the idea of "cunning" and how it connects to our concepts of rationality and morality, gleefully gamboling across the literature and pop culture of a few millennia and invoking Hume as convincingly as Tammy Faye Bakker. Herzog writes engaging prose without sacrificing the intellectual rigor of his exploration (the book winds down, for example, with a vexing question about Greek mythology: "They don't cast cunning as wisdom's bitch daughter. They cast wisdom as cunning's bitch daughter. What then?") and contextualizes his ideas by "going local" to provide real-world examples (Internet and telemarketing scams, plastic surgery) rather than relying on "off-the-shelf abstractions." The book is organized into three parts-Dilemmas, Appearances, and Despair-but Herzog jumps from topic to topic and century to century, referencing and cross-referencing so quickly that structure is moot. Some readers may find his approach disorienting, but those ready for a scholarly escapade will find it innovative and invigorating.
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Review
"Erudition, knavery, & Tupperware ... After all, it's sinful, some might say, but it's also necessary". -- Robert Fulford, National Post

"In prose that conveys a deliciously convivial murmur ... very cunning indeed". -- Steven Poole, The Guardian, May 6th, 2006

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (January 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691124159
• ISBN-13: 978-0691124155
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,158,185 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cunning - the silent artificer , February 28, 2006

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

There is a concept which describes a certain kind of character- type in Israel. The concept is ' fryerr' .A 'fryerr' is something like a sucker , a person who on every occasion simply gets the short end of the stick. As I am sort of pretty much of kind of a 'fryerr' I take great interest in what can be thought of as the opposite type of character, the 'cunning ' person, the one who knows how to cleverly get what they want.
Now in order to satisfy my interest, and perhaps teach me a few tricks which I will of course never learn Don Herzog has cunningly written a book on the subject of 'Cunning'. And this as I am suddenly reminded of one of my favorite literary characters, 'Gimpel the Fool' who is always being deceived by others, and who no matter how many times he is disappointed, continues to believe and hope in them. The saintly fool, which I suppose the sympathy of many of us is really with.
'Cunning' people we might admire, but we do not really like very much. That is unless we happen to be trapped in an elevator with them and they figure out the way out.
But 'cunning' as Herzog explains is a lot more than being smart. In an outstanding review of the book which appeared first in CanadaCom. Robert Fulford describes the history of the concept of cunning as elaborated by Herzog as follows:

The "evolution of the word "cunning" suggests that a history could be written through changing word-meanings. In the 14th century, "cunning" meant erudition, and in the 16th Sir Thomas More described virtues such as "chastity, liberality, temperance, cunning." But perhaps English speakers noticed that wisdom could be put to corrupt ends. They shifted the adjective from the Positive column to the Negative.

By the 18th century it clearly meant knavery. The sentimental 19th century added a new meaning -- appealing, sweet. Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit tells us of tea served with "cunning teacakes." By 1887 it described a child who was "piquantly interesting." Today, a more blatant use emerges: A British ad agency called Cunning promises "guerrilla marketing," boasting British Airways and Levi's as clients.

Cunning is essential to some. A poker player lacking it would be comically inept. A politician who presented the same face to all his followers would be unique in history as well as unsuccessful. And then there's law, an industry grounded in cunning. This worried James Boswell, a lawyer, so he asked his idol, Samuel Johnson, about legal ethics. Boswell feared that simulating strong feelings or stating something you don't believe might distort the moral sense, making a lawyer immoral in his private life. Johnson replied: "Why no, Sir. Everybody knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation."

Cunning is connected with secrecy, with duplicity, with the ability to mimic and deceive. Cunning people often play at being simple- minded .The con-man is of course one great popular American figure of cunning.

When I think however of the supreme cunning( Herzog also analyzes novels and shows how skillful they can be in providing false clues as to what their characters really are- i.e. deceiving by appearances.) I think of one great literary master, Joyce.
It was by 'silence, exile and cunning' that he would win his way to literary greatness, forge in the smithy of his soul ' the uncreated conscience of his race'. How cunning, and perhaps how duplicitous, but the fact is that of all the hundreds of thousands of writers of the twentieth century Joyce was cunning enough ( and of course great enough in literary terms) to have his work read and reread all the years of the nights.

My sense is many of us would do well to study Herzog's work to acquire a bit of cunning of our own. But then my guess is, most of us, would out of our absurd need to come out with it all at the beginning, to be completely honest and straightforward, forget to be cunning, and not achieve what we want.
Some of us seems will be compelled to admire and perhaps resent the 'cunning' without ever being able to truly join their ranks.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a cunning piece of work, May 26, 2006

By	R. Kevin Hill (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

On the surface, this book seems to be in the genre of cultural history, the history of an idea (Machiavellian maneuvering). But wait a minute! Isn't Machiavellian maneuvering a timeless fact of life for us humans? Isn't the idea of a history of cunning as odd as the idea of a history of sexuality? There's the rub. It turns out that how we think about cheats and scoundrels has a history, and one can't quite view it in the same way again once this comes to light. More: not only do our assumptions about scoundrelhood reflect a history, but they don't stand up to critical scrutiny (the author's beautiful final story of the gulled murderer at the end illustrates this, but I don't want to spoil it for you by explaining it here). More: dubious assumptions about scoundrelhood are lurking in the deep background of how slews of people today think about rational choice, philosophy of social science, and the nature of morality, and though the author does not lean heavily on this point, if the reader is aware of what, say, economists think rational self-interest is, the implications of the critical history of scoundrelhood for all kinds of projects is quietly devastating. This agenda, if it is his agenda, sneaks up on you in the course of what you might think is just a really fun sequence of anecdota, revealing him as a stealth philosopher. The stealth philosopher seems also revealed in the very quiet undercurrent of insistence that we rethink our assumptions about morality, selfishness and deceit, and acknowledge them, and human life more generally, as the cussedly complex, theory-defying things that they are. Yet this touches the reader on a more intimate level--are you sure you *are* a good person? How do we draw the boundaries between dupe and knave? Can we? The author provides no answers, only lots of really uncomfortable questions. Last but not least, all of this is presented in one of the most delightfully wicked, jazzy, clever, fun prose styles I have ever encountered. There is a kind of brilliantly improvisational quality to the book which makes it a joy to read. The better to sneak up on you with its deeper concerns, sowing seeds of doubt that we know what rationality and irrationality, honesty and deceit, good and evil, really are. How very cunning.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chump or Cad?, June 25, 2006

By	Alexander Herzen - See all my reviews

Here is the dilemma addressed by Herzog: We do not want to be chumps, and we do not want to be cads (or, in his terms, fools or knaves). But is there a third option? As Herzog demonstrates, the question is harder to answer than one might unreflectively think. Offering a dazzling and difficult rumination on cunning in low and high culture, Herzog shows that making the case against cunning requires one to question numerous modern dogmas, including welfare economics and instrumental rationality. The discussion includes an analysis of Homer's and Sophocles' arch-trickster, Odyesseus, and the more prominent "high culture" defenders or chroniclers of cunning -- Machiavelli, Hobbes, David Hume, Tacitus. But Herzog also seamlessly knits in discussions of Nigerian e-mail scams; the 17th century astrologer William Lilly; Master James, a murderous and adulterous 17th century curate; Albanian ponzi schemes; and Tupperware parties. Want to know what those last five items (among others) have to do with Machiavelli's Mandragola? Read the book.