Mary Ann Glendon
A.B., J.D., M.C.L., University of Chicago
Professor of Law, Harvard University Law School,
President, The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

On the occasion of the publication of her book The Forum and the Tower: How Scholars and Politicians Have Imagined the World, from Plato to Eleanor Roosevelt

Co-sponsored by the Committee on Social Thought and the University of Chicago Law School

About the Book:
As Aristotle noted long ago, two very different and sometimes incompatible ways of life; the political and the philosophical exert a powerful pull on the ambitious and talented members of any society. Mary Ann Glendon, who teaches at Harvard Law School, says that she sees this double attraction in her students. Some go into politics, but many turn away, fearful of the compromises and corruptions of power. Such students may go on to become teachers and scholars, but they never quite give up on the idea of making a difference in the wider, public world, even if they aren’t quite sure how to do it. Ms. Glendon’s The Forum and the Tower profiles 12 figures in Western history who struggled not always successfully with the conflict between an active life and a contemplative one, between life in the public forum and life in the ivory tower.… The Forum and the Tower is a wise exploration of the eternal tension between action and thought.
Brian C. Anderson, The Wall Street Journal