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December 17, 2018|Abraham Lincoln, Civil Religion, Cold War, Foreign Policy, George Washington, Iraq War, Progressivism, The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy, Theodore Roosevelt

American Heresies and the Betrayal of the National Interest: A Conversation with Walter McDougall

by Walter A. McDougall|1 Comment

Walter McDougall discusses how America's civil religion has shaped our foreign policy.

February 1, 2018|Barack Obama, Executive Power, George Washington, Jeffrey Tulis, President Donald Trump, The Federalist, The Rhetorical Presidency, Theodore Roosevelt

Presidential Rhetoric and the Challenge to American Constitutionalism: A Conversation with Jeffrey Tulis

by Jeffrey K. Tulis|5 Comments

President Theodore Roosevelt
Have changes in the style and manner of presidential rhetoric in the 20th century served us well?

January 23, 2018|American Foreign Policy, containment, Eliot Cohen, Hard Power, Interventionism, Soft Power, Theodore Roosevelt

Overusing The Big Stick

by William Anthony Hay|3 Comments

Eliot Cohen presents a world full of threats, but not all of them are best addressed with military power.

October 23, 2017|Ben Sasse, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Saint Augustine, The Vanishing American Adult, Theodore Roosevelt

America’s Delayed Adolescence in the Digital Economy

by Ryan Shinkel|2 Comments

American grit was once thought permanent. With the right stuff, a single person with a few kindred spirits could find salvation, start a business, run for offic

September 4, 2015|Denalie, Executive Power, Mt. McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt

Reducing a Mountain to a Molehill: The Media, Executive Power and Denali

by Greg Weiner|22 Comments

Let the historians charting the growth of executive power take note of August 30, 2015, which is the day America became a nation in which Presidents could rename mountains and nobody asked how.

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October 27, 2014|Alexis de Tocqueville, George Nash, Herbert Hoover, Molly Melching, The Quiet American, The Ugly American, Theodore Roosevelt, Walter McDougall

The American: Not Ugly, Not Quiet

by Lauren Weiner|Leave a Comment

Hoover

George Nash, the dean of Herbert Hoover scholars, wrote about our 31st President most recently in the Wall Street Journal, commemorating the centenary of Hoover’s heroic World War I disaster-relief efforts in Europe. Nash described how, in 1914, a young and successful London-based mining engineer made his move “to ‘get in the big game’ of public life.”

Nash’s words capture a do-gooding impulse, but one that is mixed with personal ambition. This interesting alloy should be familiar. It puts Herbert Hoover in a long line of Americans in whom self-improvement and world-improvement seem inextricably tied—a line stretching back in our history, at least to Benjamin Franklin, and forward into our time.

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September 25, 2014|Lochner, Paul Moreno, Progressivism, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson

Anatomy of a Juggernaut

by Bradley C. S. Watson|2 Comments

The subtitle of Paul D. Moreno’s new book, “The Twilight of Constitutionalism and the Triumph of Progressivism,” is the thrust of a growing body of revisionist scholarship on the Progressive movement. Moreno adds a valuable historian’s perspective to this scholarship, which is associated largely with the “Claremont school” of political science. He notes the central conceit of 20th century American history: the triumphalist portrayal of an ever-expanding national state, one that would finally offer authentic liberty—freeing individuals not only from inequality, but from the reactionary idea that human nature itself imposes permanent constraints. Moreno suggests that the Obama presidency has brought…

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September 2, 2014|

How to Secure America’s Peace

by Angelo M. Codevilla|4 Comments

U.S. Soldiers at Camp Bucca in Iraq. Photo Credit: DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images

Our historically literate founding statesmen elaborated a foreign policy to shield Americans’ exceptional way of life in a hostile world through the timeless principles of statecraft. For more than a century, their successors held to the Founders’ purpose and to those principles. America grew great. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, a new generation of statesmen, consciously abandoning the Founders’ way of thinking, has turned U.S. foreign policy from shielding the American people against danger to improving or otherwise leading the rest of mankind. Imagining that everyone, everywhere shares their good intentions, they have conducted America’s international affairs…

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Responses

Finding Fault in Our National Insecurity

by Walter A. McDougall

Angelo Codevilla has been a legend in our house since the 1980s when my wife and I first encountered this Renaissance force of nature radiating virtú. Somehow Angelo manages a vineyard in California, a horse ranch in Wyoming, a large, loving family, a prolific academic career, and world travel without strain, indeed with unfailing ebullience.…

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A Trenchant Yet Flawed Analysis of American Foreign Policy

by Ted Galen Carpenter

Angelo Codevilla’s analysis of the many problems associated with U.S. foreign policy provides an abundance of important insights. He is devastatingly on the mark when he contends that since the beginning of the 20th century, U.S. officials have transformed the Founders’ emphasis on shielding the American people against external dangers into an arrogant, unattainable objective…

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Principle and Prudence in American Foreign Policy

by Mackubin Thomas Owens

There is much with which to agree in Angelo Codevilla’s thoughtful essay. To the extent that he and I differ, it is with regard to means and not ends. We both agree that U.S. foreign policy is in shambles, characterized by drift and incoherence. It is at best a-strategic at worst anti-strategic, lacking any concept…

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Benevolent Hegemon, Illiberal, or Too Far Gone Already?

by Angelo M. Codevilla

Walter McDougall writes: “Congress and the American people…want to believe their ‘indispensable nation’ can be a ‘benevolent hegemon’ doing good on the cheap and doing well by doing good.” As a description of how Americans view our role among nations, this is arguable. But it is a fair summation of our foreign policy establishment‘s view…

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July 28, 2014|George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Neoconservatism, Progressivism, Realism, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson

Achieving America’s Peace: A Conversation with Angelo Codevilla

by Angelo M. Codevilla|Leave a Comment

Angelo Codevilla comes to Liberty Law Talk to discuss his latest book To Make and Keep Peace Among Ourselves and with All Nations. Our conversation focuses on Codevilla’s main argument that American statesmen increasingly fail to understand the nature and purpose of statecraft: the achievement of peace. So what does it mean to achieve America’s peace? To do so, Codevilla insists, requires concrete evaluation of the means and ends necessary to protect American interests. This requires particular judgments about power, interests, and the practial reality we are confronted with. Our practice, for well nigh a century, has been to speak in…

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June 26, 2014|Executive Power, Franklin Roosevelt, Progressivism, Separation of Powers, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson

The Imperial Mount Rushmore

by Joseph Postell|4 Comments

Protest against the Macron government in Strasbourg, France, July 12, 2017 (Hadrian/Shutterstock.com).

Though it’s been a few weeks since it appeared, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Stephen Knott’s excellent piece on whether Woodrow Wilson destroyed the office of the presidency. The clamor about the imperial presidency is on the rise with many commentators (such as George Will) and Knott’s article gives us a better understanding of its rise, as well as its implications. Knott describes the “expectations gap” that has arisen due to modern conceptions of the presidency, where we expect the president to heal the planet, rather than work to enact reforms within the institutions of constitutional government.

In response to Professor Knott I would only mention that I think Woodrow Wilson may not even deserve top billing in terms of producing the rise of presidential power.

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Book Reviews

A Compelling and Compassionate Book about Epilepsy

by Theodore Dalrymple

Our knowledge of the human brain is limited, but neuroscientist Suzanne O’Sullivan’s observation of her patients yields astute insights.

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Andrew Roberts Takes the Measure of the “Populist” Aristocrat, Churchill

by Joao Carlos Espada

Yes, there is something new to be learned about Winston Churchill, and it's in the new 1,105-page biography by Andrew Roberts.

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Liberty Classics

Paul Heyne and the Trouble with Economists

by Nikolai G. Wenzel

Economics is often a morality-free zone, and Paul Heyne shows why this is a mistake.

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Bringing Natural Law to the Nations

by Samuel Gregg

If sovereign states ordered their domestic affairs in accordance with principles of natural law, the international sphere would benefit greatly.

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Podcasts

Born-Again Paganism: A Conversation with Steven Smith

A discussion with Steven D. Smith

Steven Smith talks with Richard Reinsch about his provocative thesis that a modern form of paganism is becoming public orthodoxy.

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"Slouching Towards Mar-a-Lago:" A Conversation with Andrew Bacevich

A discussion with Andrew J. Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich discusses his new book Twilight of the American Century

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Bureaucracy, Regulation, and the Unmanly Contempt for the Constitution

A discussion with John Marini

John Marini unmasks the century-long effort to undermine the Constitution's distribution of power.

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Beautiful Losers in American Politics: A Conversation with Nicole Mellow

A discussion with Nicole Mellow

Nicole Mellow on the beautiful losers in American politics who have redefined the country.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

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