Uncommon Knowledge with Paul Rahe

Paul A. Rahe holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College. In view of his classic three-volume study of Republics Ancient and Modern, Professor Rahe is the academy’s foremost authority on the history of republics. He is also the author, most recently, of Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect, a book that explains the deep roots of the Age of Obama.

We are proud to have provided the platform launching Professor Paul Rahe into the blogosphere. Professor Rahe is one of the country’s most distinguished scholars, but he has also proved to be a natural blogger as well. He is an incredibly hard-hitting academic, now posting regularly at Big Government and at Ricochet.

In this installment of Uncommon Knowledge, Peter Robinson begins with Professor Rahe’s scholarship on the history of republics and a discussion of Sparta. The discussion culminates in our current predicament in the United States, ranging from the Founders to the Progressives, from Ronald Reagan to Paul Ryan and the Age of Obama. Recorded live before an audience at Hillsdale on October 3, the video is 50 minutes long and worth every minute. Through our arrangement with the Hoover Institution, we are pleased to present it in its entirety.

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