The Decline and the Declaration: Gibbon and the American Founding

Attend James Madison College's annual Jack Paynter Endowed Lecture on Oct. 22 at 5 p.m. in Case Hall (842 Chestnut Road, East Lansing). This year's featured speaker is Dr. Hugh Liebert, a professor of political science, director of the Dawkins Scholars Program, and founding co-director of the American Foundations minor at the United States Military Academy (USMA). 

 

The Decline and the Declaration: Gibbon and the American Founding

In 1776, Americans announced the birth of a new republic and Edward Gibbon published the first volume of his famous history of Rome, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. What did these two events have to do with one another?  Very little—at least overtly.  Although Gibbon served in Parliament through most of the American Revolution and knew many of its leading British protagonists, his great history says almost nothing directly about America or modern Britain.  That has not stopped Gibbon’s readers, in the eighteenth century and today, from asking “Are we Rome?” 

 

This lecture takes up the question of how Gibbon’s history applies to our own times.  It will argue that Gibbon’s deepest teaching occurs not by analogy but by disanalogy. Studying the decline of the ancient world allows Gibbon to identify sources of strength in the modern world.  It also allows Americans to find reasons for hope during the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration.

 

About the Paynter Lcture
James Madison College celebrates the life of founding faculty member Jack Paynter annually with the Jack Paynter Endowed Lecture, funded generously by gifts from former students, friends, family, and colleagues. The Paynter lecture brings renowned speakers to James Madison College to discuss historical, philosophical, social, legal and political subjects in the spirit of Jack's career and intellectual curiosity. Learn more about Professor Paynter's legacy.