The Compleat Gentelman Author:Brad Miner I cant imagine a better gift for a young graduate — Its not about manners, its about manhood — In words like these, readers have expressed their reactions to Brad Miners brilliant challenge to modern men: to recover the oldest and best ideal of manhoodthe gentleman. — Neither prude, nor prig, nor fop, the gentleman is a classic combination of stren... more »gth and selflessness, contemplation, correct action and, yes: cool. He is the aristocrat not of wealth or birth, but of virtue. Miner is too wise in the ways of young men to think they will respond to lectures or another guidebook on which fork to use. Instead he tells of an ideal and the men throughout history who have triedalways imperfectlyto live up to it. Three masculine archetypes emergethe warrior, the lover, and the monk or scholarand combine in the character of the ""compleat gentleman,"" who always practices his virtues with the discretion, decorum, and nonchalance that the Renaissance called sprezzatura, and we call cool.« less