Eric Nelson Named Professor of Government at Harvard

Cambridge, Mass. June 14, 2010 - Political theorist Eric Nelson, whose work has traced the history of republicanism from the ancient Greeks and Romans through the Renaissance to the present day, has been named professor of government at Harvard University. "Professor Nelson's work is uncommonly erudite and stunningly original," says Stephen Kosslyn, dean of social science in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "In a relatively brief time, he has made genuinely novel observations about authors, texts, and intellectual traditions that have been studied for generations by some of the world's most distinguished historians and philosophers. Indeed, his books are less contributions to mainstream political theory than overturnings of conventional wisdom." Nelson is the author of three books. His first, The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2004), drew an important distinction between Greek and Roman republicans, long combined by historians in a single category. Nelson points out a key limitation of this approach, noting that while Roman republicans viewed the preservation of private property as paramount to civic society, Greek republicans saw acute differences in wealth as both dangerous and unjust.