Why Manners Matter: The Case for Civilized Behavior in a Barbarous World

by Lucinda Holdforth

Book Overview

"Witty, well-reasoned, and, yes, occasionally potty mouthed, the fiercely talented Lucinda Holdforth may be doing more to save civilization than anyone I know. Holdforth has held forth, and for this I... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399155325
• ISBN13: 9780399155321
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 7.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The Ginger Rogers of Writing About Manners

I think this book is superb. The writing to be found in it is wholly conversational yet elegant, humorous and yet graceful. I can say that I learned only a little extra knowledge in reading this book but then I'm a dues-paying member of the choir to whom Lucinda Holdforth is preaching and I was simply looking for a truly successful engagement with the book and its author and, I'm happy to say, I met my goal. I didn't expect to be more appreciative of the subject of manners than I already am nor did I expect to be taught how to have manners, but, again, I was wholly resuscitated, made whole once again, by the reinforcement and validation the author offers here on the subject of manners. One starts to question one's sanity being surrounded by so much that is bare civility at best. I am amazed how few people, including women (who can yawn without cupping their hand over their mouth or who can't refrain from uttering the instinctive sounds of bursting exhaustion at the same time -- or young men who use the street as their private garbage can), really know and understand manners or know and care how to be mannerly. This book is not a how-to book. It's a conversation, an informal discourse, a shared exploration and experience, not a manual. It's also highly personal, and still the author manages to touch upon the universal within us all. I was really touched by the vignette about Mrs. Maugham, mother of the famous author, Somerset Maugham. When asked what the secret was to her happiness with her husband who was an ugly toad of a guy (while she was petite and beautiful and could have had any handsome man she wanted), Mrs. Maugham replied, "He never hurts my feelings." In this little graceful book, you will glide like Ginger Rogers across the floor of the page, reading about Talleyrand, Castiglione, Edmund Burke (as well as politics and law) in addition to riding coach on a crowded plane with a bunch of young male executives who couldn't care less about your boundaries or personal space -- only to discover you're in the most pleasant company you could hope to meet in your travels, Lucinda Holdforth. The author really does hold forth -- and well -- about the casualization of our culture and what havoc it wreaks in terms of our external consideration of one another. She points up how in Proust's major novel a character makes a subtle gesture, largely with a twitching nostril, to indicate her displeasure with present company, a gesture that would be, the author herself confesses, unknowable and unrecognizable today. Like another instance of subtle gesturing known as "false shame," the author's observations about our present egalitarian society where we have no leaders who can set the standard for good manner underscore the real difficulty which was only obliquely mentioned in her book : what we actually are losing is awareness that others are just as important as we are. While the author does make this assertion, there was little e

Manners Have Mattered Longer Than You Might Think

Do manners matter? They do make social interactions easier or more pleasant, but are they actually necessary? Holdforth not only makes a good case for them, put provides a readable history of manners and their place in earlier civilizations. She uses many examples, from ancient Athens (Aristotle and Pericles) to 19th Century philosophy (Alexis de Tocqueville and Marcel Proust). /Why Manners Matter/ is an easy read, even with all the references that come flying through. It's said that an armed society is a polite society. More accurately it's that a well-mannered society is a polite society. Always has been. Keeps the social interactions running smoothly--between strangers, acquaintances, and family. Holdforth holds forth (sorry, just couldn't avoid that) on the major parts of why manners matter--because man is a social animal, manners are more important than laws, manners sustain our equality, and manners give us dignity. Easy to read, educational, fun. And probably a great passive-aggressive gift for those ill-mannered people in your life.