Wilson Carey McWilliams (2 September 1933 – 29 March 2005), son of Carey McWilliams, was a

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

Biography

McWilliams served in the

11th Airborne Division The 11th Airborne Division ("Arctic Angels") is a United States Army multirole infantry division made up of specialized light infantry and airborne infantry based in Alaska. Currently, this unit specializes in arctic warfare, airborne operat ...

of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

from 1955 to 1961, after which he took his master's degree and Ph.D. degrees at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. There he studied under

Sheldon Wolin Sheldon Sanford Wolin (; August 4, 1922 – October 21, 2015) was an American political theorist and writer on contemporary politics. A political theorist for fifty years, Wolin became Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, wher ...

John Schaar John Homer Schaar (July 7, 1928 – December 26, 2011, age 83), also known as Jack Schaar, was an American political theorist. He was a professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Schaar was born in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, ...

and Norman Jacobson, and also recognized the influences of political theorists

Leo Strauss Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was an American scholar of political philosophy. He spent much of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students an ...

and

Bertrand de Jouvenel Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins (; 31 October 1903 – 1 March 1987) was a French philosopher, political economist, and futurist. He taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of Manchester, Yale University, ...

. He wrote a Masters thesis on the political realism of

Hans Morgenthau Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations. Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition ...

and

Reinhold Niebuhr Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of Ameri ...

. He was also active in the early stages of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the student activist group

SLATE Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

. Prior to teaching at Rutgers University he taught at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

and

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...

. He was also a visiting professor at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Fr ...

. He came to Yale in the Spring of 1969 with a timely and provocative seminar on "American Radical Thought". At Harvard he taught the evening seminar "American Political Theory in the 19th Century" during the spring of 1998, a popular course attended by several professors including

Harvey Mansfield Harvey Claflin Mansfield Jr. (born March 21, 1932) is an American political philosopher. He was the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he taught from 1962 until his retirement in 2023. He has held Guggenhei ...

. As a visiting professor he went out of his way to connect with the students in his courses (and sometimes in nearby bars). McWilliams was the recipient of the John Witherspoon Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities, conferred by the New Jersey Committee for the Humanities, and also served as a vice-president of the American Political Science Association. Recordings are available of his last class
American Political Thought since the Civil War
which was continued after his death by his daughter, Susan McWilliams Barndt, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of politics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

at the time and currently a professor of politics at

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists ...

. At the time of his death, McWilliams had been married for more than 30 years to the psychoanalyst and author Nancy Riley McWilliams. Their daughter Helen McWilliams was the lead singer of VAGIANT Boston.

Writings

McWilliams was author of ''The Idea of Fraternity in America'' (1973, University of California Press), for which he won the National Historical Society prize in 1974. In this book, McWilliams argued that there was an "alternative tradition" to the dominant liberal tradition in America, which he variously traced through the thought of the Puritans, the Anti-federalists, and various major and minor literary figures such as Hawthorne, Melville, Twain and Ellison. He argued that this tradition drew philosophical inspiration from ancient Greek and Christian sources manifested in an emphasis upon community and fraternity, which was properly the means to achieving a form of civic liberty. He contrasted this tradition with the liberal tradition, which conversely held that individual liberty was thought to culminate in political fraternity. A major influence on McWilliams's thought was the book ''

Democracy in America (; published in two volumes, the first in 1835 via Gallica; via Gallica and the second in 1840) via Gallica; via Gallica is a classic French work by Alexis de Tocqueville. In the book, Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he be ...

'' by the French theorist

Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (29 July 180516 April 1859), was a French Aristocracy (class), aristocrat, diplomat, political philosopher, and historian. He is best known for his works ''Democracy in America'' (appearing in t ...

, and like Tocqueville, McWilliams commended to modern liberal democracy the arts of association and a chastening form of religious faith. McWilliams was also a prolific essayist, whose works appeared in ''

Commonweal Commonweal or common weal may refer to: * Common good, what is shared and beneficial for members of a given community * Common Weal, a Scottish think tank and advocacy group * ''Commonweal'' (magazine), an American lay-Catholic-oriented magazin ...

'' and other journals. His essays on American elections from 1976 to 1998 were collected in two volumes, ''The Politics of Disappointment'' (1995, Chatham House) and ''Beyond the Politics of Disappointment'' (2000, Chatham House). In 2011, two edited collections of his essays were published, co-edited by Patrick J. Deneen and his daughter, Susan J. McWilliams. The books were entitled, respectively,
Redeeming Democracy in America
' (University Press of Kansas, 2011) and
The Democratic Soul: A Wilson Carey McWilliams Reader
' (University Press of Kentucky, 2011).

External links

* Deneen, Patrick
My Teacher, My Friend
''Front Porch Republic'' {{DEFAULTSORT:McWilliams, Wilson Carey Rutgers University faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Harvard University staff Oberlin College faculty Haverford College faculty Brooklyn College faculty 1933 births 2005 deaths