History and Political Science

I was born in Rumson, New Jersey. I was previously employed as a New Jersey Senate Aide in the office of S. Thomas Gagliano, District 12, and as executive director of the Monmouth County Historical Commission. I began teaching at Hillsdale College in the fall of 2000. I’ve authored the following books: Reflections on De Gaulle: Political Founding in Modernity (1983); Reflections on Malraux: Cultural Founding in Modernity (1984); Our Culture ‘Left’ or ‘Right’: Essays on Relativism (with Paul Eidelberg) (1992); Culture in the Commercial Republic (1996); A Political Approach to Pacifism (1996); Self-Government, The American Theme: Presidents of the Founding and Civil War (2004); Regime Change: What It Is, Why It Matters (2004); and The Dilemma of Progressivism: How Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson Reshaped the American Regime of Self-Government (2009).

Political philosophy, American regime, statesmanship

Regimes: Ancient and Modern

Hillsdale College is one of the few liberal arts colleges that remains a real liberal arts college, not a place for pre-professional training.

If you want instruction from textbooks written by college professors, don't come here. I teach politics out of Aristotle and Tocqueville because they are more sensible and intelligent than textbook authors are. You only have four years in college, so why not spend those years reading first-raters instead of hacks?

The students here are serious about figuring out how to live their lives.

wmorrisey@hillsdale.edu