About Walter McDougall

Walter A. McDougall is the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania and Chair of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Center for the Study of America and the West. Dr. McDougall is the author of many books including Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776, and The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America’s Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest.

The Challenge Confronting Conservatives: Sustaining a Republic of Hustlers

By |2022-12-08T18:21:22-06:00December 8th, 2022|Categories: Conservatism, Foreign Affairs, Timeless Essays|Tags: , , |

If in fact the prudential, im­mediate goal of conservatives is simply to defend what remains of our heritage and forestall a slide into anarchy, then what is it conservatives can do to sustain our Republic of Hustlers? At our 2009 annual meeting, the Scholars Council of the Library of Congress was exposed to some surreal [...]

Policing the World

By |2021-08-22T13:34:43-05:00August 22nd, 2021|Categories: Constitution, History, Republicanism, Statesman, Timeless Essays|Tags: , , |

Benjamin Harrison insisted America’s truly dangerous enemies were not Great Powers abroad but a lapse of integrity and purity at home. He believed republicanism would spread in the world by “sympathy and emulation” and feared the harm Americans might do to themselves and to others should they undertake to extend their institutions by force: “We [...]

Conservatism, Civil Religion, & the Culture War

By |2020-08-24T16:54:25-05:00October 8th, 2017|Categories: American Republic, Books, Conservatism, Featured, Foreign Affairs, History, Middle East, Politics, Timeless Essays|

Our real culture wars are not being waged between “God and country” conservatism on the one side and multicultural secular liberalism on the other. It now seems to me that our real culture wars are waged between Civil Religion on the one side and Christian orthodoxy on the other. At our 2009 annual meeting, the [...]

Promised Land, Crusader State: U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1776

By |2021-02-01T14:48:55-06:00September 28th, 2017|Categories: American Founding, Christianity, Federalist Papers, George Washington, History, Jamestown, National Security|

During her first century, America’s foreign policy closely guarded her place as a holy land, set apart from the wicked Old World. The purpose of foreign policy was to keep the corrupt outer world from shaping our nation. Who are we, we Americans? Are we champions of liberty, both civil and religious, both at home [...]

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