In Gateway to Statesmanship, John A. Burtka IV, president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, seeks to revive the tradition of mirror-for-princes literature, a project both timely and timeless. Criticism and distrust of political leaders are not confined to the modern age; complaints about those in power are as old as politics itself—as are attempts to discover principles that would improve their conduct and performance. Plato’s Socrates suggested that turmoil would continue until wisdom could be united to political rule, a rare quality present in few statesmen. Across history, contemporary Americans that have lost faith in their leaders are not outliers in their crisis of confidence. Bearing our present difficulties in mind, self-preservation confronts us with an urgent need to recover the time-tested principles of political leadership.
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