Book Review: The Social and Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Sandrine Bergès and Alan Coffee

• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0090591719839352
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

904
Political Theory 47(6)
since Martha C. Nussbaum explicitly attempts to extend that perspective to
include nonhuman nature.3 But a more forthright engagement with contem-
porary democratic theory would have strengthened the argument by tracing
out the implications of Hogue’s provocative political theology.
In a surprising and intriguing move toward the end of the book, Hogue
proposes “following a path from justice to beauty” (180) and attempting to
build solidarity on the basis of “a more beautiful world whose possibility we
feel more deeply than we know” (184). It is a provocative and profound ques-
tion and suggests a new way of looking at the moral and aesthetic dimensions
of democratic and environmental relationships. That said, readers may still be
left wondering what the replacement of justice with beauty entails in terms of
political theory and practice and whether this apparent turn to aesthetics
might run the risk of turning away from politics altogether. If the details
remain elusive, there can be no doubt that in American Immanence, Michael
S. Hogue has laid the foundation for further work on the planetary implica-
tions of contemporary democratic theory and practice.
Notes
1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Global Warming of 1.5 C,”
October 2018 (online at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/); “Fourth National
Climate Assessment, Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United
States,” November 2018 (online at https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/).
2. Livingston,
Damn Great Empires! William James and the Politics of Pragmatism
(Oxford, 2016); Rogers, The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the
Ethos of Democracy (Columbia, 2009).
3. Martha C. Nussbaum, “Beyond ‘Compassion’ and ‘Humanity’: Justice for
Nonhuman Animals,” in Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions,
ed. Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum (Oxford, 2005); Martha C.
Nussbaum, “Beyond the Social Contract: Toward Global Justice,” The Tanner
Lectures on Human Values (Utah, 2004).
The Social and Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft, edited by Sandrine Bergès
and Alan Coffee. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 240 pp.
Reviewed by: Megan Gallagher, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
DOI: 10.1177/0090591719839352
As far as posthumous reputations go, Mary Wollstonecraft has had a par-
ticularly rough go of it. The initial reluctance to embrace her as a political
philosopher in her own right has long been attributed to the publication of

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Book Reviews
905
the Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by her
husband, the philosopher William Godwin, mere months after her death in
1797. By all accounts, Godwin sought to honor his late wife. However (and
rather predictably), his judgment was compromised by his grief. Revealing
that her first daughter, Fanny, was conceived and born outside of marriage
and that Wollstonecraft had twice attempted suicide devastated her reputa-
tion for over a century. Alternately regarded as the Amazonian virago
whose female friendships were suspiciously passionate or a wanton would-
be temptress who unsuccessfully pursued men beyond the bounds of pro-
priety, even those who defended her ideas sometimes resorted to doing so
without mentioning her name.1 Her critics were vociferous and even
vicious; the Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, a reactionary periodical
not disposed to take her seriously, nonetheless went so far as to include one
index entry that read “Prostitution. See Mary Wollstonecraft” and another
for the woman herself that reads as follows:
Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Mary, Memoirs of, 94 - keeps her father in awe, ib. -
lively fancy without knowledge and habits of reasoning, ib. - so qualified,
becomes one of the Analytics Reviewers, ib. - undertakes to answer Burke, 95
- answer such as might have been expected, ib. - her constitution, testified by
her husband to have been amorous, ib. - Rights of Woman characterized, ib. -
her passions inflamed by celibacy, 96 - falls in love with a married man, ib. - at
the breaking out of the war betakes herself to our enemies - ib. - intimate with
the French leaders under Robespierre, 97 - with Thomas Paine, ib. - taken by
Imlay into keeping, ib. - her husband declares that her soul has panted for that
connection, ib. -...