The Hoover Institution hosted "From Athens to America: Democracy and Political Science" on Monday, December 10, 2018 from 1:15 PM – 5:45 PM EST.

The Hoover Institution in DC hosted Senior Fellow Harvey Mansfield, for a conference centered around a fundamental question: "Why Democracy?"

It is a timeless question, as familiar to Americans today as it was to the Framers two centuries ago, and to philosophers two millennia earlier. But as the late Delba Winthrop (1945-2006) observes in her newly published book, Aristotle: Democracy and Political Science, the question may have been best answered by Aristotle, in Book 3 of his Politics.

Winthrop's new book was originally submitted as a doctoral dissertation in 1974, at the age of 28. Now this work of stunning originality and maturity is at last being published, every word as she wrote it, by the University of Chicago Press.

To mark publication of this book, the Hoover Institution and the Foundation for Constitutional Government have organized two panels: the first on Winthrop's book, with experts on Aristotle's political philosophy; the second on the importance of Aristotle for understanding our politics today, with a panel of experts on American constitutional political philosophy.