Dignity: Its History and Meaning; Michael Rosen; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012; 200 pages; $21.95 hardcover; 978-0-674-06443-0. This book is a revised and expanded version of the author's 2007 Benedict Lectures at Boston University. Rosen deliberately aimed to keep the tone informal and accessible to non-specialists, and in my view he was mostly successful in this. Relatedly, the book is short and sweet in length: for example, the text proper is only 160 pages; a 9-page preface,

more »

... 5 pages of light endnotes, and an 8-page index round out the work. Because of these features, and because of the quality of the book's content, I suspect it will become a touchstone or "first stop" for many who want to get up to speed on the philosophical threads making up the fabric of current debates about dignity.