About the Author

Claes G. Ryn is Emeritus Professor of Politics, Distinguished Senior Scholar, and Founding Director Emeritus of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University of America, where he was also Chairman of his department. His many books include A Common Human Ground, America the Virtuous, Will, Imagination and Reason, Democracy and the Ethical Life, and the novel A Desperate Man. An internationally recognized political thinker, he has lectured widely in the United States, Europe, and Asia, especially China, where three of his books and many of his articles have been published. He was President of the Philadelphia Society, Chairman and co-founder of the National Humanities Institute, and President and co-founder of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters.