cover image The Code of Man: Love Courage Pride Family Country

The Code of Man: Love Courage Pride Family Country

Waller Newell. William Morrow & Company, $25.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-06-008751-7

Building on his 2000 anthology What Is A Man?, Newell's latest book on ""how to be a man"" challenges the stereotypes about uncaring and belligerent bearers of XY chromosomes. Tracing ideas of manliness through the work of such Western writers as Aristotle, Homer, Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway, among many others, Newell argues for a return to traditional ideas of manhood to inspire young men""to treat others--and themselves--with respect."" He reminds readers that men need""the five main ingredients of a satisfying life"": love, courage, pride, family and country. Through the ages, Newell writes, love meant sensitivity and nobility, while courage and pride were about""the struggle to defend and extend justice and to overcome our own baser instincts."" Somewhere along the way, though, the image of the traditional""manly heart"" was lost, and men turned to misogynistic machismo and senselessly violent behavior to prove their manhood. Newell insists that a balance among the five manly virtues is the key to reversing the contemporary man's detachment from loving-kindness and his tendency toward""brutal spasms of reactive violence"" (such as the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine high school massacre and the 9-11 attacks). Those resistant to reducing men--and women--to a set of""natural"" character traits take note, for this book certainly considers the Mars/Venus school of thought a flawed accomplice in undermining all that is positive about men and their potential contributions to a just and happy society.