This course unfolds the history of the American regime through a careful study of key public documents, speeches, literary works, films, and other cultural artifacts. Special attention is given to the colonial antecedents of the American republic, the principles and practice of the founding generation, controversies among the second and third generations of American statesmen over slavery, and the democratization and the reconceptualization of the American regime that paved the way for the introduction of Pragmatism, Pluralism, Progressivism, Imperialism, and the growth of the American administrative state. The course closes with a discussion of the nature and trajectory of the twenty-first century American regime.

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Dr. David Corbin has taught political philosophy, American politics, international relations and politics & literature at the University of New Hampshire, Boston University, and The King’s College over two decades. While at The King’s College, he served as Dean of their school of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, during a three-year period when the college doubled its enrollment.

Dr. Corbin graduated from the University of New Hampshire Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Political Science in 1993, earned his MA in Political Science at the University of New Hampshire in 1995, before receiving his PhD in Political Science at Boston University in 2005. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society.

Dr. Corbin has participated in numerous academic and civic endeavors, including serving a term in the New Hampshire State Legislature (1998-2000), involvement in the Henry Salvatori Fellows program at the Heritage Foundation (1998), the study of liberty and literature at the Liberty Fund (1999), touring Switzerland with a delegation of 20 outstanding young American diplomats to further American-Swiss relations in the summer of 2000, as a candidate for the governorship of New Hampshire in 2002, his appointment as the 2007-2008 Julius Stratton Adams fellow by the Friends of Switzerland, Boston, and as a Lehrman Institute Fellow in 2010.

Dr. Corbin has written a book on Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (VDM, 2009) and co-authored Keeping Our Republic: Principles for a Political Reformation (Resource Publications, 2011) and A Readers Guide to Aristotle’s Politics (Continuum, 2009). He is currently working on a manuscript titled Shakespeare’s Prince on a comparative study of Shakespeare and Machiavelli’s understanding of statesmanship. Dr. Corbin’s analysis of political, cultural and social trends has appeared in the Investor’s Business Daily, The New York Times, The Washington Times, the Associated Press, First Things “First Thoughts”, Radio Free Europe, the French News Agency, New Hampshire Public Broadcasting, New England Cable News, and WCVB’s “Chronicle,” along with various other news organizations on the East Coast.

He and his wife Catie have five children: Alexander, Catherine, Patrick, Eliza, and Jack.