The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) is pleased to announce that Resident Fellow Dr. David Frisk will be leading a weekly continuing education course on “Modern Statesmanship and Leadership” every Monday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., beginning September 8.  The course, a mixture of lecture and discussion, will be held at the AHI’s headquarters 21 W. Park Row, Clinton, New York and will finish on December 8. The course and readings are free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided. Seating is limited, so please register in advance by contacting either Professor Robert Paquette bob@theahi.org, or Dr. Frisk dfrisk@theahi.org. You may also register by calling Dr. Frisk directly at 202-999-5751 (c).

AHI Resident Fellow David Frisk speaking at the 2014 Annual Summer Conference

The class will focus on how American and European leaders have conducted major affairs of state in the past two centuries since our nation’s founding.  It will consider a variety of successes and failures. The carefully selected readings will range from authoritative but well-written works of history, to a few major speeches, to some of the deeper observations on the nature of high-level leadership by both scholars and statesmen themselves.

The course will examine such well-known names in statesmanship as Washington, Lincoln, and Churchill. Other figures will include Henry Clay, General William T. Sherman, key Allied leaders in World War I, Franklin Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur in the postwar reconstruction of Japan, and Konrad Adenauer in the reconstruction of Germany.

In describing the course, Dr. Frisk stated that “Americans have tended to place great faith in two other sources of good government: in our constitution and the people’s wisdom. For different reasons, both are easily overrated, in the sense that too much is expected from them. The two most central attributes of the statesman — a far-seeing kind of good judgment and an exceptionally strong sense of public duty — are not provided even by a wise public or a great constitution. Leaders either have these qualities or don’t. No great nation can long do without them.”

Dr. Frisk received his Ph.D. in political science from Claremont Graduate University in 2009 with specialties in American politics and political philosophy. His publications include If Not Us, Who? William Rusher, National Review, and the Conservative Movement (ISI Books, 2012).  He is also an award-winning journalist and has taught at Concordia University in California and worked for the Claremont Institute.