通識教育講座領域：社會科學

(1)主講者：Eric Nelson

職稱：教授

服務單位：哈佛大學政治學系

演講者學經歷：

ACADEMIC POSITION
2014- Robert M. Beren Professor of Government
Harvard University
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
2009-2014 Professor of Government
Harvard University
2009 Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government
Harvard University
2005-2009 Assistant Professor of Government
Harvard University
2003-2007 Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows
2001-2003 Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge
HIGHER EDUCATION
2002 Ph.D., Trinity College, Cambridge, England
Faculty of History
Thesis: The Greek Tradition in Early-Modern Republican Thought

大綱:

It is usually taken to be a puzzle that the United States came quite quickly to regard itself as a democracy, given that the framers of the Constitution were uniformly hostile to this form of government. In fact, however, one of the most important figures in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787—James Wilson of Pennsylvania—stridently insisted both that democracy was the best form of government and that the new Constitution was fundamentally democratic. This lecture will make the case that Wilson derived this heterodox set of views from a neglected tradition of democratic thought initiated by Greek historians of the Roman period.