Award-winning historian Michael Auslin discusses his new book that demonstrates how Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence have inspired implausibly varied causes, from suffragists and civil rights leaders to groups waging war on the United States government. Auslin will address the lessons that should be taken from the document today and how the Declaration’s ideals can bring a disparate nation together. As we gather to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founders’ bold experiment in democracy, this talk will also remind us that the enduring document was not just a call for freedom and equality but an eloquent statement of the principles that bind us together.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Michael Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Previously an associate professor of history at Yale University, Auslin is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Among his honors are being named a distinguished visiting scholar at the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center, a Fulbright Scholar, a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a German Marshall Fund Marshall Memorial Fellow, and the American Heritage Partners Research Fellow at the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati. He also serves on the board of the American Ditchley Foundation. In addition to his new book and feature of tonight’s program, National Treasure, he is the author of two other books, Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific and The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World’s Most Dynamic Region. He also writes The Patowmack Packet, a Substack on Washington, DC, and has been a longtime contributor to The Wall Street Journal. His writing appears in other leading publications including the Financial Times, The Spectator, Law & Liberty, and Foreign Policy. He also comments regularly for US and foreign print and broadcast media.