Out now! John Bloxham's Ancient Greece and American Conservatism

I'm delighted to announce that my latest book, Ancient Greece and American Conservatism: Classical Influence on the Modern Right, has just been published by I.B. Tauris. This book is based upon PhD research undertaken at the University of Nottingham.

According to the blurb... US conservatives have repeatedly turned to classical Greece for inspiration and rhetorical power. In the 1950s they used Plato to defend moral absolutism; in the 1960s it was Aristotle as a means to develop a uniquely conservative social science; and then Thucydides helped to justify a more assertive foreign policy in the 1990s. By tracing this phenomenon and analysing these, and various other, examples of selectivity, subversion and adaptation within their broader social and political contexts, John Bloxham here employs classical thought as a prism through which to explore competing strands in American conservatism. From the early years of the Cold War to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bloxham illuminates the depth of conservatives' engagement with Greece, the singular flexibility of Greek ideas and the varied and diverse ways that Greek thought has reinforced and invigorated conservatism. This innovative work of reception studies offers a richer understanding of the American Right and is important reading for classicists, modern US historians and political scientists alike.

Reviews

'John Bloxham's timely and original study of the engagement of postwar American conservatism with the ideas of ancient Greece will be essential reading for anyone interested in US political history or in the enduring influence of classical philosophy on the modern world.'

Patrick Finglass, Henry Overton Wills Professor of Greek and Head of the Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Bristol

'John Bloxham's study of the reception of Greek political thought in the United States since World War II is a model of its kind. He offers a lucid and intelligent analysis of the use of antiquity by influential and important thinkers such as Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom as well as the place of Greek thought in the development of movements such as neoconservatism. His timely book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of modern American conservatism, in the politics of the American educational system, and in the reception of Greek historiography and philosophy.'

Tim Rood, Professor of Greek Literature, University of Oxford

Available from Amazon, Blackwells, Barnes & Noble, WH Smiths etc. Full research interests available at my Academia page here.