Gary Chartier, Understanding Friendship: On the Moral, Political, and Spiritual Meaning of Love. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022. 246 pages. 978-1-5064-7908-8. US $39.00 (Hb)

Gary Chartier has written a very good book. It’s the only book on friendship I know of that takes such a wide-angle view of friendship, discussing the relationship of friendship to sexuality and romantic love, as well as to the good society, politics, economics, and theology. What makes friendship important, says Chartier, is that it is “a basic aspect of our flourishing. It is a vital element of our essentially social existence. Friendship is morally weighty, politically significant, and spiritually central” (p. xiii).

Yet in spite of covering so many topics, the book is not dilettantish; it is insightful and sensible. No easily refutable flashy declarations about how intimate friendship is the single most important thing in life, or how it makes a country prosperous, virtuous, and wise.

Find the full book review here.