Paul Rahe, The Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College and an AHI academic adviser, published in 1994 a monumental multivolume work on Republics: Ancient and Modern. His Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect (2009) sounds a timely warning about the perils of state centralization. “We may still take pride in being a self-governing people,” Rahe contends, “but to an ever-increasing degree that pretense is unsustainable.”  In a work of remarkable erudition, Professor Rahe recalls Alexis de Tocqueville’s warnings about the potential for democracy’s drift to “soft despotism.”

The Heritage Foundation invited Professor Rahe to speak about his most recent book, which also received close attention from Pulitzer-prize winning columnist  George Will in a Sunday column in the Washington Post.

The AHI congratulates Professor Rahe on his achievements and looks forward to his appearance in the near future at our headquarters to discuss his latest book.