Conversations from the Cullman Center: Illiberal America: Steven Hahn with Linda Gordon
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, a new book on the powerful illiberalism as deep-seated in the American past as the founding ideals
The Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021, led many to recoil, thinking, “That’s not us.” But now we must think again, for Steven Hahn shows that illiberalism has deep roots in our past. To those who believe that the ideals announced in the Declaration of Independence set us apart as a nation, Hahn shows that Americans have long been animated by competing values, equally deep-seated, in which the illiberal will of the community overrides individual rights and often protects itself by excluding perceived threats–whether on grounds of race, religion, gender, economic status, or ideology. Today, with illiberalism shaping elections and policy debates, it is urgent to understand this long history and how it bears on the present crisis.
Steven Hahn worked on Illiberal America during his 2020-2021 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He will discuss his book with award-winning historian Linda Gordon.
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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Steven Hahn is a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian who studies American political and social movements. His acclaimed works include A Nation Under Our Feet and A Nation Without Borders. He teaches at New York University and lives in New York City and Southold, on Long Island.
Linda Gordon has taught at the University of Wisconsin and NYU. Originally an historian of Russia/Ukraine, she published Cossack Rebellions: Social Turmoil in the Ukraine. Turning then to US history, her work focused on the history of gender and family issues, publishing books on the history of birth control, family violence, and welfare. Her story of a vigilante action against Mexican-Americans, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, won the Bancroft Prize for best book in American history and the Beveridge Prize for best book on the history of the Western Hemisphere. Her biography of photographer Dorothea Lange won a second Bancroft Prize among other awards. She continued to work on photography with a brief biography of photographer Inge Morath and, with Gary Okihiro, a book on Lange’s never published photographs of the WWII internment of Japanese Americans, which had been impounded by the US Army because of their critical perspective. Her most recent books are Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements and The Second Coming of the KKK. A new book on 20th-century American social movements will be out in fall 2024. She was a Cullman Center Fellow in 2004-2005.
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In-Person
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The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.