MACON – Mercer University’s Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles on April 4 will host Dr. Peter McNamara of Arizona State University in the concluding event of its 2021-2022 speaker series.
Dr. McNamara, professor of practice in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State, will speak on “Alexander Hamilton’s Ideas on War and Peace” at 6 p.m. in the Presidents Dining Room inside the University Center.
“We’re very excited to have a scholar of Professor McNamara’s caliber to come to campus and share his thoughts in a public lecture as well as with our America’s Founding Principles class,” said Dr. Will Jordan, associate professor of political science and co-director of the McDonald Center. “Recent events reveal the perennial importance of thinking through issues of war policy, and it is helpful to revisit the thoughts of Hamilton, one of American history’s best strategic thinkers.”
Dr. McNamara’s research and teaching focuses on American political thought, early modern political thought and political economy. He also specializes in the American founding and Alexander Hamilton.
He is the author of Political Economy and Statesmanship: Smith, Hamilton and the Foundation of the Commercial Republic, editor of The Noblest Minds: Fame, Honor and the American Founding and co-editor of Liberalism, Conservatism and Hayek’s Idea of Spontaneous Order.
He has written on a variety of other topics, including Hayek’s moral theory, political opportunism, Jefferson’s federalism and the intellectual origins of business schools.
Dr. McNamara earned his Bachelor of Economics with First Class Honors from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and Ph.D. in political science from Boston College.
About the Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles
The Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles exists to supplement Mercer University’s excellent liberal arts program with a redoubled commitment to the foundational texts and ideas that have shaped Western Civilization and the American political order. This focus on the core texts of the Western tradition helps to revitalize a cross-centuries dialogue about citizenship, human rights, and political, economic and religious freedom, thereby deepening the moral imagination and fostering civic and cultural literacy.
The McDonald Center’s programming includes the annual A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas, faculty-student reading groups, a general education course on America’s Founding Principles, summer Great Books programs for high school teachers and students, and undergraduate research fellowships. All programming is designed to enhance Mercer’s longstanding role as a distinctive home of liberal learning, a place where serious students come to live the life of the mind and emerge more thoughtful and engaged citizens.
