Charles R. Kesler
Encyclopedia
Charles R. Kesler is professor of Government/Political Science
at Claremont McKenna College
and Claremont Graduate University
. He has a Ph.D
in Government from Harvard University
, from which he received his AB degree in 1978. He is editor of the Claremont Review of Books
, and the author of Keeping the Tablets: Readings in American Conservatism. He is Director of the Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World and Claremont Institute's Publius Fellows Program.
At Claremont, he is a senior fellow of the conservative Claremont Institute, and directs their Publius Fellows Program; a summer institute. Additionally, he is the editor of the Claremont Review of Books
, a quarterly political magazine. He was the Director of Henry Salvatori Center at Claremont McKenna College.
. Kesler describes the purpose of the Institute as follows:
He has published many peer-reviewed articles and political articles and reviews in publications of the Claremont Institute and elsewhere.
Dr. Kesler was a delegate to the International Youth Year Conference
in Jamaica
in 1985.
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
at Claremont McKenna College
Claremont McKenna College
Claremont McKenna College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college and a member of the Claremont Colleges located in Claremont, California. The campus is located east of Downtown Los Angeles...
and Claremont Graduate University
Claremont Graduate University
Claremont Graduate University is a private, all-graduate research university located in Claremont, California, a city east of downtown Los Angeles...
. He has a Ph.D
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Government from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, from which he received his AB degree in 1978. He is editor of the Claremont Review of Books
Claremont Review of Books
The Claremont Review of Books is a quarterly review of politics and statesmanship published by the Claremont Institute. Many consider it a conservative intellectual answer to the liberal New York Review of Books...
, and the author of Keeping the Tablets: Readings in American Conservatism. He is Director of the Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World and Claremont Institute's Publius Fellows Program.
At Claremont, he is a senior fellow of the conservative Claremont Institute, and directs their Publius Fellows Program; a summer institute. Additionally, he is the editor of the Claremont Review of Books
Claremont Review of Books
The Claremont Review of Books is a quarterly review of politics and statesmanship published by the Claremont Institute. Many consider it a conservative intellectual answer to the liberal New York Review of Books...
, a quarterly political magazine. He was the Director of Henry Salvatori Center at Claremont McKenna College.
On Lincoln
Kesler is known for taking his scholarship of former President Lincoln very seriously. In a review of David Herbert Donald's book "Lincoln" he claimed that Donald tried to make Lincoln far more pragmatic, moderate, and generally inept than he really was. He claims that Lincoln's mission to reinstate the Declaration of Independence to its rightful place as a guide to constitutional jurisprudence and the soul of the American experiment is overlooked by Donald. Kesler notes that Donald had spent considerable time under the tutelage of revisionist historian J.G. Randall. Randall argued that no great difference existed between the philosophies of Lincoln and political rival Stephen Douglas. Although Mr. Donald did not go as far as his teacher he leaves much to be desired because shows us, as Kesler concludes, "Lincoln the politician but misses Lincoln the statesman".The Claremont Institute
Kesler is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and an editor of the Claremont Review of BooksClaremont Review of Books
The Claremont Review of Books is a quarterly review of politics and statesmanship published by the Claremont Institute. Many consider it a conservative intellectual answer to the liberal New York Review of Books...
. Kesler describes the purpose of the Institute as follows:
Some conservatives start, as it were, from Edmund BurkeEdmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
; others from Friedrich HayekFriedrich HayekFriedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
. While we respect both thinkers and their schools of thought, we begin instead from America, the American political tradition in all its genius and profundity, and the relation of our tradition to revealed wisdom and to what the elderly Jefferson once called, rather insouciantly, "the elementary books of public right, as AristotleAristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, CiceroCiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, Locke, Sidney, etc." We think conservatism should take its bearings from the founders' statesmanship, our citizens' loyalty to the Declaration and Constitution, and the scenes, both tender and proud, of our national history. This kind of approach clears the air. It concentrates the mind. It engages and informs the ordinary citizen's patriotism. And it introduces a new, sharper view of liberalism as descended not from the French RevolutionFrench RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, the Industrial RevolutionIndustrial RevolutionThe Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, nor (God forbid) Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
, but from that movement which, a century ago, criticized George Washington's and Lincoln's Constitution as outmoded and, as we'd say today, racist, sexist, and antidemocratic. The Progressives broke with the old Constitution and its postulates, and set out to make a new, living constitution and a new, unlimited state, and the Obama Administration's programs are merely the latest, and worst, installment of that purported evolution.
Books
Kesler has edited several widely-used books:- Saving the Revolution:The Federalist Papers and the American Founding (Free Press, 1987) (held in over 500 American libraries).
- Keeping the Tablets: Readings in American Conservatism (HarperCollins, 1988)(together with William F. Buckley, Jr.William F. Buckley, Jr.William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
). - The Federalist Papers (Signet Classcis, 2003) (this is the best selling edition of the Federalist PapersFederalist PapersThe Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...
)
He has published many peer-reviewed articles and political articles and reviews in publications of the Claremont Institute and elsewhere.
Dr. Kesler was a delegate to the International Youth Year Conference
International Youth Year
The year 1985 was proclaimed by the United Nations as the International Youth Year, or IYY. It was held to focus attention on issues of concern to and relating to youth. The proclamation was signed on January 1, 1985 by United Nations Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.-Events:Throughout the...
in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
in 1985.