Paul A. Rahe

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About Paul A. Rahe

After reading Litterae Humaniores at Wadham College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship from 1971-1974, Paul A. Rahe completed a Ph.D. in ancient history at Yale University under the direction of Donald Kagan in 1977. In subsequent years, he taught at Cornell University, Franklin and Marshall College, and the University of Tulsa, where he spent twenty-four years before accepting a position at Hillsdale College, where he is Professor of History and holds The Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage.

Professor Rahe's entire scholarly career has been focused on two subjects: the origins and evolution of self-government within the West, and the interplay between politics, diplomacy, and war. His range is considerable. His first book, Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution (1992), was 1200 pages in length and surveyed the origins and development of self-government in ancient Greece and Rome, its re-emergence in a new form in the Middle Ages, the transformation it underwent at the hands of the political philosophers of early modernity, and the statesmanship of the American Founding Fathers. Within the first thirteen months of publication, the hardback edition sold out. Thereafter, it reappeared as an alternative selection of the History Book Club. In 1994, it was reissued in a three-volume paperback edition by the University of North Carolina Press, and it remains in print.

In the course of his career, Professor Rahe has published dozens of chapters on related subjects in edited books and scholarly articles in journals such as The American Journal of Philology, Historia, The American Journal of Archaeology, The American Historical Review, The Review of Politics, History of Political Thought, The American Journal of Business and Professional Ethics, The Journal of the Historical Society, Social Philosophy & Policy, Security Studies, The National Interest, The American Interest, and The Woodrow Wilson Quarterly. He spent two years in Istanbul, Turkey in the mid-1980s as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs; he has been awarded research fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Earhart Foundation; and he has held research fellowships at the Center for Hellenic Study, the National Humanities Center, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D. C. , Clare College at Cambridge University, All Souls College at Oxford University, the American Academy in Berlin, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; and he has given a host of public lectures at universities in the United States and abroad--most recently at the Hebrew University, at Al-Quds University, at Shalem College in Jerusalem, at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in England, at the Free University in Berlin, and at the Marine Corps University in Quantico. In 1997-98, he was named to the Templeton Honor Rolls for Education in a Free Society by The John M. Templeton Foundation. In 2006 the Society for French Historical Studies awarded him the Koren Prize for the Best Article Published in French History the preceding year. And, in October 2019, the Mackinder Forum named his book Sparta's First Attic War: The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 478-446 B.C. the book of the year for excellence in geopolitical analysis.

Professor Rahe co-edited Montesquieu's Science of Politics: Essays on the Spirit of Laws (2001) with David W. Carrithers and Michael A. Mosher, and he edited Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy (2006). His second book, Against Throne and Altar: Machiavelli and Political Theory under the English Republic, which examines the political thought inspired by the abortive republican experiment that took place in England in the period stretching from 1649 to 1660, was published by Cambridge University Press in April, 2008. His third and fourth books, Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War, Religion, Commerce, Climate, Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit of Political Vigilance, and the Foundations of the Modern Republic and Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville on the Modern Prospect, were published by Yale University Press in 2009.

Since that time, Professor Rahe has been working on a series of volumes focused on the grand strategy articulated and re-articulated time and again by ancient Sparta. Four of these volumes -- The Spartan Regime: Its Character, Origins, and Grand Strategy; The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta: The Persian Challenge; Sparta's First Attic War: The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 478-446 B.C.; and Sparta's Second Attic War: The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 446-418 B. C.-- have been published by Yale University. OProfessor Rahe is currently working on a sequel to the last of these volumes -- tentatively entitled Sparta's Third Attic War: The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 418-404 B.C. -- and he hopes to complete the series with a volume on Sparta's Imperial Venture.

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Books By Paul A. Rahe

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Sparta's Second Attic War: The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 446-418 B.C. (Yale Library of Military History) Aug 4, 2020

by Paul Anthony Rahe

( 7 )

$19.99

In a continuation of his multivolume series on ancient Sparta, Paul Rahe narrates the second stage in the six-decades-long, epic struggle between Sparta and Athens that first erupted some seventeen years after their joint victory in the Persian Wars. Rahe explores how and why open warfare between these two erstwhile allies broke out a second time, after they had negotiated an extended truce. He traces the course of the war that then took place, he examines and assesses the strategy each community pursued and the tactics adopted, and he explains how and why mutual exhaustion forced on these two powers yet another truce doomed to fail. At stake for each of the two peoples caught up in this enduring strategic rivalry, as Rahe shows, was nothing less than the survival of its political regime and of the peculiar way of life to which that regime gave rise.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Audio CD

Sparta's First Attic War: The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 478-446 B.C. (Yale Library of Military History) Aug 6, 2019

by Paul Anthony Rahe

( 17 )

$19.99

A companion volume to The Spartan Regime and The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta that explores the collapse of the Spartan†‘Athenian alliance

During the Persian Wars, Sparta and Athens worked in tandem to defeat what was, in terms of relative resources and power, the greatest empire in human history. For the decade and a half that followed, they continued their collaboration until a rift opened and an intense, strategic rivalry began. In a continuation of his series on ancient Sparta, noted historian Paul Rahe examines the grounds for their alliance, the reasons for its eventual collapse, and the first stage in an enduring conflict that would wreak havoc on Greece for six decades. Throughout, Rahe argues that the alliance between Sparta and Athens and their eventual rivalry were extensions of their domestic policy and that the grand strategy each articulated in the wake of the Persian Wars and the conflict that arose in due course grew out of the opposed material interests and moral imperatives inherent in their different regimes.

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The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta: The Persian Challenge (Yale Library of Military History) Nov 24, 2015

by Paul Anthony Rahe

( 46 )

$22.80

More than 2500 years ago a confederation of small Greek city-states defeated the invading armies of Persia, the most powerful empire in the world. In this meticulously researched study, historian Paul Rahe argues that Sparta was responsible for the initial establishment of the Hellenic defensive coalition and was, in fact, the most essential player in its ultimate victory.

Drawing from an impressive range of ancient sources, including Herodotus and Plutarch, the author veers from the traditional Atheno-centric view of the Greco-Persian Wars to examine from a Spartan perspective the grand strategy that halted the Persian juggernaut. Rahe provides a fascinating, detailed picture of life in Sparta circa 480 B.C., revealing how the Spartans’ form of government and the regimen to which they subjected themselves instilled within them the pride, confidence, discipline, and discernment necessary to forge an alliance that would stand firm against a great empire, driven by religious fervor, that held sway over two-fifths of the human race.

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The Spartan Regime: Its Character, Origins, and Grand Strategy (Yale Library of Military History) Sep 27, 2016

by Paul Anthony Rahe

( 18 )

$16.99

An authoritative and refreshingly original consideration of the government and culture of ancient Sparta and her place in Greek history

For centuries, ancient Sparta has been glorified in song, fiction, and popular art. Yet the true nature of a civilization described as a combination of democracy and oligarchy by Aristotle, considered an ideal of liberty in the ages of Machiavelli and Rousseau, and viewed as a forerunner of the modern totalitarian state by many twentieth-century scholars has long remained a mystery. In a bold new approach to historical study, noted historian Paul Rahe attempts to unravel the Spartan riddle by deploying the regime-oriented political science of the ancient Greeks, pioneered by Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon, and Polybius, in order to provide a more coherent picture of government, art, culture, and daily life in Lacedaemon than has previously appeared in print, and to explore the grand strategy the Spartans devised before the arrival of the Persians in the Aegean.

Other Formats: Hardcover

Republics Ancient and Modern, Volume I: The Ancien Régime in Classical Greece Nov 1, 2017

by Paul A. Rahe

( 2 )

$16.19

An assessment of the ancient Greek city and its subsequent influence. A masterwork of political theory and comparative politics for the classroom.

"In a series of sketches touching on everything from the lust for honor to the suspicion of commerce and philosophy, from the role of homoerotic bonds in maintaining military formations to the distrust of technological innovation, Rahe brilliantly reminds us how utterly committed the Greeks were to a politics in which the distribution of honors, education and culture in all their forms, and economic activity were all designed to preserve civic solidarity.--Jack N. Rakove, American Historical Review

"[An] extraordinary book. . . . It is a great achievement and will stay as a landmark.--Patrick Leigh Fermor, The Spectator (London)

"A work of magisterial erudition.--Journal of American History

Other Formats: Paperback

Republics Ancient and Modern, Volume II: New Modes and Orders in Early Modern Political Thought Nov 1, 2017

by Paul A. Rahe

( 2 )

$16.19

This is a work vast in scale, soaring in its scholarly ambition, and magnificent . . . in its achievement. The author's command of the primary sources is staggering in breadth and depth, deftly orchestrated and rich with insight. . . . Deploying an avalanche of evidence. . . Rahe shows how alien the modern project, in all its diverse versions, was to the classics as well as the Bible.--Thomas L. Pangle, Political Theory

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Montesquieu's Science of Politics: Essays on The Spirit of Laws Dec 20, 2000

by David W. Carrithers , Michael A. Mosher , Paul A. Rahe , Cecil Courtney , Paul A. Rahe. Michael A. Mosher. Sharon Krause , Rebecca E. Kingston , Catherine Larrere , Iris Cox

$44.09

Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws is one of a handful of classic works of political philosophy deserving a fresh reading every generation. The product of immense erudition, Montesquieu's treatise has captured since its first printing (1748) the imagination of an impressive array of intellectuals including Rousseau, Voltaire, Beccaria, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Herder, Siey_s, Condorcet, Robespierre, Bentham, Burke, Constant, Hegel, Tocqueville, Emile Durkheim, Raymond Aron, and Hannah Arendt. In what constitutes the only English-language collection of essays ever dedicated to the analysis of Montesquieu's contributions to political science, the contributors review some of the most vexing controversies that have arisen in the interpretation of Montesquieu's thought. By paying careful attention to the historical, political, and philosophical contexts of Montesquieu's ideas, the contributors provide fresh readings of The Spirit of Laws, clarify the goals and ambitions of its author, and point out the pertinence of his thinking to the problems of our world today.

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Against Throne and Altar: Machiavelli and Political Theory Under the English Republic Apr 14, 2008

by Paul A. Rahe

( 2 )

$28.00

Modern republicanism - distinguished from its classical counterpart by its commercial character and jealous distrust of those in power, by its use of representative institutions, and by its employment of a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances - owes an immense debt to the republican experiment conducted in England between 1649, when Charles I was executed, and 1660, when Charles II was crowned. Though abortive, this experiment left a legacy in the political science articulated both by its champions, John Milton, Marchamont Nedham, and James Harrington, and by its sometime opponent and ultimate supporter, Thomas Hobbes. This volume examines these four thinkers, situates them with regard to the novel species of republicanism first championed in the early 1500s by Niccolò Machiavelli, and examines the debt that he and they owed the Epicurean tradition in philosophy and the political science crafted by the Arab philosophers Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroës.

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Republics Ancient and Modern, Volume III: Inventions of Prudence: Constituting the American Regime Oct 6, 2017

by Paul A. Rahe

( 3 )

$26.49

First published in 1992 and now available in paperback in three volumes, Paul Rahe's ambitious and provocative book bridges the gap between political theory, comparative history and government, and constitutional prudence. Rahe challenges prevailing interpretations of ancient Greek republicanism, early modern political thought, and the founding of the American republic. '[An] extraordinary book. . . . It is a great achievement and will stay as a landmark.'--The Spectator (London) 'This is the first, comprehensive study of republicanism, ancient and modern, written for our time.'--Harvey Mansfield, Harvard University 'A stunning feat of scholarship, presented with uncommon grace and ease--the sort of big, important book that comes along a few times in a generation. In an age of narrow specialists, it ranges through the centuries from classical Greece to the new American Republic, unfolding a coherent new interpretation of the rise of modern republicanism. . . . World-class, and sure to have a quite extraordinary impact.'--Lance Banning, University of Kentucky Volume I: The Ancien Regime in Classical Greece Where social scientists and many ancient historians tend to follow Max Weber or Karl Marx in asserting the centrality of status or class, Rahe's depiction of the illiberal, martial republics of classical Hellas vindicates Aristotle's insistence on the determinative influence of the political regime and brings back to life a world in which virtue is pursued as an end, politics is given primacy, and socioeconomic concerns are subordinated to grand political ambition. Volume II: New Modes and Orders in Early Modern Political Thought Where many intellectual historians discern a revival of the classical spirit in the political speculation of the age stretching from Machiavelli to Adam Smith, Rahe brings to light a self-conscious repudiation of the theory and practice of ancient self-government and an inclination to restrict the scope of politics, to place greater reliance on institutions than on virtuous restraint, and to give free rein to the human's capacities as a tool-making animal. Volume III: Inventions of Prudence: Constituting the American Regime Where students of the American founding are inclined to dispute whether the Revolution was liberal, republican, or merely confused, Rahe demonstrates that the American regime embodies an uneasy, fragile, and carefully worked-out compromise between the enlightened despotism espoused by Thomas Hobbes and the classical republicanism defended by Pericles and Demosthenes.

Other Formats: Paperback

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