Posted August 4, 2005

align="left" border="0" hspace="5" width="100" height="157" />With the publication of No Victory, No Peace and The Progressive Revolution in Politics and Political Science, the Claremont Institute inaugurates its new book series on Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Both works invite different perspectives on current political developments—including the war and national security against terrorism, as well as the national debate over the Supreme Court, property rights, the growth of government, the relationship between law and morality, and the character of the presidency. They seek to keep alive the founding principles of America, a country born in war over universal principles of equality and liberty. The purpose of the Claremont Institute's book series is to advance thinking about our politics in light of these highest purposes that Americans have sought for their country, in both war and peace.

In No Victory, No Peace, Angelo M. Codevilla, now teaching international relations at Boston University after a long career in intelligence and research, maintains that the Bush Administration has not ended the so-called war on terror nor achieved peace in Iraq because it has not sought victory. He provides a model of the requirements of shrewd statesmanship: applying general principles to particular events following the transformative event of 9/11. By focusing on al-Qaeda, the Bush Administration has failed to face the reality of the Middle Eastern regimes that are behind the terrorists. The task of transforming those regimes is vastly more difficult than subduing the Taliban in Afghanistan. But without such a victory, there will be no peace. The book includes the complete "Victory Watch" series, first published in the Claremont Review of Books.

align="right" border="0" hspace="5" width="100" height="154" />In The Progressive Revolution, editors John Marini and Ken Masugi, who between them have produced 10 books on American politics and political thought, present a counterrevolutionary work that examines the scope and depth of the Progressives' early 20th-century transformation of American constitutionalism. They have brought together 11 diverse scholars who agree that the Progressive Revolution was remarkably successful in its avowed aims of transforming the old American regime, from one of limited constitutionalism to one of unlimited administration, or bureaucracy. The Progressives sought to replace natural right with history, common sense and morality with scientific professionalism, and, finally, politics (and freedom) with administration. This leads to our current political situation of an unlimited government that stifles the ability to change national policies in favor of limited, constitutional policies that the American Founders would have favored. Topics range from the statesmanship of Theodore Roosevelt and Frederick Douglass to Darwinism and the new social science, and include discussions of property rights, campaign finance reform, and political parties. The contributors are Paul Carrese, Eric R. Claeys, Edward J. Erler, Tiffany R. Jones, John Marini, Will Morrisey, Peter C. Myers, Larry Peterman, John G. West, Thomas G. West, and Scot J. Zentner.

The book series's General Editor is Claremont Institute senior fellow Edward J. Erler. The books are published through Rowman & Littlefield in Lanham, Maryland. Claremont Institute scholars have previously published through this prestigious press such recognized volumes as Harry V. Jaffa's A New Birth of Freedom, Thomas G. West's Vindicating the Founders, and Ken Masugi's Interpreting Tocqueville's Democracy in America as well as his Democracy in California (with Brian Janiskee). Future planned books in the series include an annual review of the U.S. Supreme Court, a study of the American Civil Liberties Union's religious liberty jurisprudence, and a collection of essays on American citizenship in the age of multicultural immigration.