Nature and the Nation

In this episode I revisit Thucydides as discussed by David Bolotin in the classic History of Political Philosophy edited by Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. I focus on Alcibiades, Nicias, and the Sicilian Expedition.

In this episode I look at the conflict between Democracy and Oligarchy in the Peloponnesian War as described by Thucydides and translated and abridged by Paul Woodruff.

In this episode I look at the late 19th Century Darwinian Conservatism of Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, and reactions by William James and others as described in Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought.

In this episode I look at Gregory Kavka's 'Hobbes's War of All Against All' in The Social Contract Theorists edited by Christopher W. Morris, with a special focus on the prisoner's dilemma and nation size.

In this episode I return to Strauss and Cropsey collection, History of Political Philosophy, to focus on Alan Bloom's examination of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the general will, and the potential conflict between nature and custom.

In this episode I wander through Rousseau's final book, published posthumously, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker. I look at the difference between youth and old age, trusting yourself and others, and the nature of reverie itself.

In this episode I take a first look at Scottish Common Sense Philosophy as described by Douglas McDermid in The Rise and Fall of Scottish Common Sense Realism, with the aim of providing an overview of the major themes of Thomas Reid and his contemporaries.

In this episode I examine Buchanan's case for non-interventionism, or isolationism, as made in A Republic, Not an Empire. I take a look a the League of Nations and US policy after the Cold War.

In this episode I look at Jonah Goldberg's examination of the fascist tendencies of President Woodrow Wilson in his classic book, Liberal Fascism.

In this episode I look at two Republican Presidents, Taft and Harding, as detailed in Heather Cox Richardson's history of the Republican Party, To Make Men Free.