Victor Nuovo: The death of a nation

In the introduction to his magisterial work, “Leviathan,” Thomas Hobbes invites his readers to imagine the civil state as an animal, an artificial life created by human art in imitation of the divine. To justify this analogy, he likens the powers and functions of civil society to those of a human being: sovereignty is its soul; public officials, its joints; reward and punishment, its motive force; public welfare, its business; law and justice, its reason and will. The rest of Leviathan is an elaboration of … (read more)

Calvin and Hobbes are well known names, although mostly because of the celebrated comic strip figures who bear them, and not because of the historical personages whose names they bear. In history, Calvin and Hobbes are two of the most dour and forbidding … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 68th and last in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. This is the final essay in my series about the American Political Tradition. The time has come for closing comments, a summation … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 67th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. “The New Frontier” was the keynote of John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, which he sounded at the Democratic National Convention in … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 66th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. “Frances Perkins” is not a household name, but it ought to be, for Frances Perkins herself (1880–1965) is legendary. The title of a recen … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 65th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. Franklin Roosevelt delighted in the company of women, and when he died suddenly on April 12, 1945, he was surrounded by them. His wife El … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 64th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. Historians have judged World War II to be the most destructive war in human history. Seventy-five million persons died, two-thirds of the … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 63rd in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. The Second World War began on Sept. 1, 1939, and lasted for six years and a day. It ended on Sept. 2, 1945, with the surrender of Japan; … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 62nd in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) to the presidency in 1932 marks a decisive turning point in this nation’s history. … (read more)

The Great Depression was an international economic catastrophe that lasted for a decade, 1929–1939. Its end came because of a second world catastrophe that caused a burst of industrial development and employment, a second Great War, in which 75 million di … (read more)

The First World War (1914-18), a.k.a. The Great War, was an epochal moment in world history. It brought the long 19th century to an end and marked the beginning of the 20th. It wrote finis to the Gilded Age and its sanguine optimism. Its political and eco … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 59th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was elected president of the United States in 1912. It was a moment of triumph for the Progressive movement, a … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 58th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. Racism is a prejudice, and prejudices are antithetical to truth. Therefore, the expression “scientific racism” is a contradiction of term … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 57th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. Like Populism, the Progressive Movement was embodied by a great personage, Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). He embodied it the way he live … (read more)

Editor’s note: This is the 56th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. “The Age of Reform” was an expression chosen by the historian Richard Hofstadter to describe political developments in this country from … (read more)