What President Obama Needs to Learn About Freedom -- Ancient & Modern April 16, 2009

Talk by award-winning historian, J. Rufus Fears

President Barack Obama ran for office promising to catalyze change in America. Yet, any American president is going to operate in the context of much continuity: of thought, of habit and tradition, of political process. The founding fathers of President Obama's government inherited much from antiquity and from the old world. His challenge will be to enact change in the midst of overwhelming continuity.

On April 16 and 17, classical scholars from around the country will gather in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to put Barack Obama's presidency in the context of the American founding generation, and Greek and Roman antiquity. They will help us answer many questions, among them: What can ancient history teach President Obama about the modern world? What in his political worldview is inherited from the ancients? What did the founding fathers know of antiquity, and how did it inform their constitution of the United States? How does antiquity continue to influence Americans today? These are a few of the questions that will be answered at the conference, co-hosted by the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum, and Grand Valley State University's Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies.

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