ALAN WOLFE
Curriculum Vitae – updated December 2015
CURRENT POSITION:
1999-present: Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life and Professor of
Political Science, Boston College.
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
1993-1999: University Professor and Professor of Sociology and Political Science, Boston University.
1991-1993: Dean of the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science and Michael E. Gellert Professor
of Sociology and Political Science, New School for Social Research.
1979-89: Associate Professor and Professor of Sociology, Queens College and the Graduate Center, City
University of New York.
1989: Adjunct Professor, Department of Sociology, Columbia University.
1987-88: Visiting Professor, University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Fall 1982: Visiting Scholar, Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1978-80: Visiting Scholar, Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of California, Berkeley,
California.
1977-79: Visiting Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California.
1970-78: Assistant and Associate Professor of Sociology, City University of New York, Richmond
College.
1968-70: Assistant Professor of Political Science, College at Old Westbury, State University of New
York.
1966-68: Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rutgers, The State University, Douglass College.
PUBLICATIONS:
BOOKS:
At Home in Exile: Why Diaspora is Good for the Jews. Boston: Beacon Press, 2014.
Paperback edition: Boston: Beacon Press, 2015.
Political Evil: What It Is and How To Combat It, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
Paperback edition: New York: Vintage Books, 2012.
Religion and Democracy in the United States: Danger or Opportunity? (co-editor with Ira Katznelson)
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Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Gambling: Mapping the American Moral Landscape, (co-editor with Erik Owens) Waco, TX: Baylor
University Press, 2009.
•
Honorable Mention, Ray and Pat Browne Award: Best Edited Collection of 2009,
Popular Culture/American Culture Association, March 2010.
The Future of Liberalism, New York: Alfred A. Knopf publishing, 2009.
Does American Democracy Still Work?, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Is there a Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life, co-authored with James
Davidson Hunter. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2006.
Return to Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What it Needs to Do to Recover It. New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Italian translation: Ritorno alla grandezza Come l’America ha perso la consapevolezza dei propri
fini e come può ritrovarla. UTET SpA, 2007.
The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live our Faith. The Free Press, 2003.
Paperback: Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.
An Intellectual in Public. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2003.
School Choice: The Moral Debate (editor). New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
2001.
One Nation After All: What Middle-Class Americans Really Think About God, Country, Family, Racism,
Welfare, Immigration, Homosexuality, Work, the Right, the Left, and Each Other. New York: Viking
Penguin, 1998.
Marginalized in the Middle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
The Human Difference: Animals, Computers, and the Necessity of Social Science. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993.
Paperback Edition: University of California Press, 1994.
America at Century's End (editor). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Paperback Edition: University of California Press, 1992.
Whose Keeper?: Social Science and Moral Obligation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
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Paperback Edition: University of California Press, 1991.
America's Impasse: The Rise and Fall of the Politics of Growth. New York: Pantheon, 1981.
Paperback edition: Boston: South End Press, 1982.
Japanese translation: Tokyo: UNI, 1982.
The Rise and Fall of the ‘Soviet Threat.’ Washington: Institute for Policy Studies, 1979.
Revised and Expanded edition: Boston: South End Press, 1983.
The Limits of Legitimacy: Political Contradictions of Contemporary Capitalism. New York: Free Press,
1977.
Spanish Translation: Los Limites de la Legitimidad. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1980. Second
printing: 1988.
Italian Translation: I Confini della Legitimazione (Bari: DeDonato, 1981.
The Politics and Society Reader. New York: McKay, 1974. With Ira Katznelson et al.
The Seamy Side of Democracy: Repression in America. New York: McKay, 1973.
Revised edition: New York: Longmans, 1978.
Political Analysis: An Unorthodox Approach. New York: Crowell, 1972. With Charles A. McCoy.
An End to Political Science: The Caucus Papers. New York: Basic Books, 1970. With Marvin Surkin.
ARTICLES:
(1) SCHOLARLY ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS:
2013
“On the Distinctiveness of Political Violence.” Roots of Violence. Edited by Kurt Almqvist and Louise
Belfrage; Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation; Stockholm: Sweden, 2013; pg. 133-152.
2012
“The Power of False Analogies: Misunderstanding Political Islam in a Post-Totalitarian World” in Arab
Society in Revolt: The West’s Mediterranean Challenge, co-edited by Cesare Merlini and Olivier Roy,
169-183. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2012.
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2011
“Evil Ain’t What It Used to Be,” in Foreign Policy, December 19, 2011.
2010
“Political Science, Democracy and Religion,” in Religion and Democracy in the United States: Danger or
Opportunity? co-edited by Alan Wolfe and Ira Katznelson, 19-45. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2010.
“The Future of Liberal Interventionism.” In On the Idea of America, Edited by Kurt Almqvist and
Alexander Linklater; Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation; Stockhom: Sweden, 2010. pg. 219234.
2009
“Kosmopolitismus und Immigration” Transit Europaische Revue, 37:37-45; 2009.
“The Dangers of Conservative Populism,” in America at Risk: Threats to Liberal Self-Government in an
Age of Uncertainty, edited by Robert Faulkner and Susan Shell, 96-114. Ann Arbor, Michigan: The
University of Michigan Press, 2009.
“Hamlet without the Prince: The Role of Religion in Postwar Nonfiction” in Invisible Conversations:
Religion in the Literature of America, edited by Roger Lundin, 133-148. Waco, TX: Baylor University
Press, 2009.
2008
“Taking Conservatives to Task for Their Inability to Govern,” in Hope is a Tattered Flag: Voices of
Reason and Change for the Post-Bush Era, edited by Markos Kounalakis and Peter Laufer, 3-11.
Sausalito, CA: PoliPoint Press, 2008.
“Liberals and Religion,” in Debating the Divine: Religion in the 21st Century American Democracy,
edited by Sally Streenland, 70-73. Center for American Progress, Washington, DC, 2008.
2007
"Whose Christianity? Whose Democracy?" Response in Christianity and American Democracy, by Hugh
Heclo, 185-208. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts 2007.
2006
"Myths and Realities of Religion in Politics," in Red and Blue Nation? Volume One, edited by Pietro S.
Nivola and David W. Brady, 206-213. Brookings Institution Press: Baltimore, Maryland, 2006.
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“The Calling of the Public Intellectual,” in Public Intellectuals: An Endangered Species?, edited by
Amitai Etzioni and Alyssa Bowditch, 91-94. Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, Inc: Lanham, Maryland,
2006.
“Religion in America,” in The Rise of Anti-Americanism, edited by Brendon O’Connor and Martin
Griffiths, 195-202. Routledge: New York, New York, 2006.
“Education and Character in an Age of Moral Freedom,” in To Restore American Democracy: Political
Education and the Modern University, edited by Robert E. Calvert, 137-153. Rowan and Littlefield
Publishers, Inc: Lanham, Maryland, 2006.
“Religious Diversity: The American Experiment that works” in Americanism: New Perspectives on the
History of an Ideal, edited by Michael Kazin and Joseph A. McCartin, 153-166. The University of North
Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2006.
2005
“Religion as Unifier and Divider,” in Uniting America: Restoring the Vital Center to American
Democracy, edited by Norton Garfinkle and Daniel Yankelovich, 93-108. Yale University Press: New
Haven, Connecticut, 2005. Reprinted in Dieu et le droit à la difference, 397-411. Centre d’Édition et de
Diffusion du Livre, Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik, Liban, (December 2005) No 21, Volume 2.
“The Limits of the Purpose Driven Life: Can 20 Million Readers be Wrong?” in character: A Journal of
Everyday Virtues, 1:2 (Winter 2005):24-33.
“Der Traum von einer freien Welt” Internationale Politik, January 2005: 70-74.
2004
“The Culture Wars.” The Responsive Community, 14.2/3 (Spring/Summer 2004): 33-38.
“Faith, Freedom, and Toleration.” In One Electorate Under God? A Dialogue on Religion and American
Politics , edited by E. J. Dionne, Jr., Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Kayla M. Drogosz, 222-225. Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004.
2003
“Assimilation v. Multiculturalism in Liberal Democracies.” The Responsive Community, 13.3 (Summer
2003): 23-33.
2002
“The Irony of School Choice: Liberals, Conservatives, and the New Politics of Race” in School Choice:
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The Moral Debate, edited by Alan Wolfe, 31-50. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey,
2002.
“The Costs of Citizenship: Assimilation and multiculturalism in liberal democracies” in Cohesion,
Community and Citizenship, 24-40. Proceedings from Runnymede Conference, London, 2002.
“How Americans Lost their Virtue?” in Cultivating Citizens, edited by Dwight D. Allman and Michael D.
Beaty, 121-137. Lexington Books, MD, 2002.
“Moral Freedom,” in Faith and Public Policy, edited by James R. Wilburn, 125-134. Lexington Books,
MD, 2002.
“The Potential for Pluralism: Religious Responses to the Triumph of Theory and Method in American
Academic Culture.” In Religion, Scholarship, & Higher Education: Perspectives, Models, and Future
Prospects, edited by Andrea Sterk, 22-39. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 2002.
2001
"The Home Front." In How did this happen? Terrorism and the New War, edited by James F. Hoge, Jr.
and Gideon Rose, 283-293. Public Affairs: New York, New York, 2001. Also reprinted in Right vs.
Public Safety after 9/11: America in the Age of Terrorism edited by Amitai Etzioni and Jason H. Marsh,
149-156. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, New York, 2003.
“Schooling and Religious Pluralism.” In Making Good Citizens: Educating and Civil Society, edited by
Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti, 279-296. Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2001.
“The Unappreciated Virtue.” The Responsive Community, 11.3 (Summer 2001): 28-38.
“Catholicism and Sociology: Elective Affinity or Unholy Alliance?” In Higher Learning and Catholic
Traditions, edited by Robert E. Sullivan, 23-38. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.
2000
“Afterword.” In The Power Elite, New Edition, by C. Wright Mills, 363-81. New York: Oxford
Universtity Press, 2000.
“Are We Losing Our Virtue? The Case of Civility.” In Civility, edited by Leroy S. Rouner, 126-141.
Notre Dame, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 2000.
“Civil Religion Revisited: Quiet Faith in Middle-Class America.” In Obligations of Citizenship and
Demands of Faith, edited by Nancy L. Rosenblum, 32-72. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2000.
“Identity Politics and Contemporary Liberalism,” with Jytte Klausen. In Kontingenz und Krise:
Institutionspolitik in kapitalitischen und postsozialistischen Gesellschaften, edited by Karl Hinrichs,
Herbert Kitschelt and Helmut Wiesenthal, 79-101. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2000.
“Judging the President.” In What's God got to do with the American Experiment?, edited by E. J. Dionne,
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Jr. and John J. Dilulio, Jr., 90-95. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000.
“Wirtschaftliche und moralische Freiheit.” Transit Europaische Revue 19 (Summer 2000): 123-136.
“Présidentielles américaines: le poids des religions.” Etvdes November 2000: 463-470.
1999
“Civic Competence, Community, Inclusion: What Does Democracy Demand of Public Education?” In
Education Times 4 (Fall 1999): 3-7
“Moral Inquiry in Social Science,” Erasmus Institute papers, University of Notre Dame, Number 3, 1999,
1-20.
1998
“Is Civil Society Obsolete? Revisiting predictions of the Decline of Civil Society in Whose Keeper?” In
Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America edited by E.J. Dionne Jr., 17-23.
Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 1998. Also published in the Brookings Review (1997).
“What is Altruism?” In Private Action and the Public Good, edited by Walter W. Powell and Elisabeth S.
Clemens, 36-46. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
“Can the Workplace Replace Bowling?” The Responsive Community 8.2 (Spring 1998): 41-7.
“Social Science and the Moral Revival: Dilemmas and Difficulties.” In The Face of the Facts: Moral
Inquiry in American Scholarship, edited by Richard Wrightman Fox and Robert B. Westbrook, 227-50.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
1997
“Identity Politics and the Welfare State,” with Jytte Klausen. In The Welfare State, edited by Ellen
Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul, 231-55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997). (Reprinted in Social Philosophy and Policy, 1997.
“Public and Private in Theory and Practice: Some Implications of an Uncertain Boundary.” In Public and
Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy, edited by Jeff Weintraub and
Krishan Kumar, 182-203. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
“The Moral Meaning of Work.” The Journal of Socio-Economics 26.6 (1997): 559-570.
1996
“Two Cheers for Professionalism: The 1960s, the University, and Me.” In Reassessing the Sixties:
Debating the Political and Cultural Legacy, edited by Stephen Macedo, 184-203. New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 1996.
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“The Feudal Culture of the Post-Modern University.” The Wilson Quarterly 20 (Winter 1996): 54-66.
1995
“Materialism and Morality: The Role of Social Science.” In Rethinking Materialism: Sociological and
Theological Perspectives, edited by Robert Wuthnow, 215-35. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans,
1995.
“Human Nature and the Quest for Community.” In New Communitarian Thinking: Persons, Virtues,
Institutions, and Communities, edited by Amitai Etzioni, 126-40. Charlottesville, VA: University of
Virginia Press, 1995.
“The Social and Cultural Incorporation of Sociological Knowledge,” with Robert K. Merton. The
American Sociologist 26 (Fall 1995): 15-39.
“Has There Been a Cognitive Revolution in America? The Flawed Sociology of The Bell Curve.” In The
Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America, edited by Steven Fraser, 109-23. New
York: Harper Collins, 1995.
“Social and Natural Ecologies: Similarities and Differences.” In Seedbeds of Virtue: Sources of
Competence, Character, and Citizenship in American Society, edited by David Blankenhorn and Mary
Ann Glendon, 163-83. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1995.
1994
“The Two Faces of Social Science.” The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville 15 (1994): 19-45.
(Reprinted in Sociological Visions, edited by Kai Erikson, 31-56. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, 1997, 31-56.)
“Foreward.” In Constructive Sociological Theory: The Legacy of T. G. Masaryk, edited by Alan N.
Woolfolk and Jonathan B. Imber, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1994.
1993
“The Modern Corporation: Private Agent or Public Actor.” Washington and Lee Law Review, 50 (Fall
1993): 1673-1696.
“Whatever Happened to Compassion?” Critical Review 7 (1993): 497-503.
“Middle Class Moralities.” The Wilson Quarterly 17 (Summer 1993): 49-64.
1992
“Weak Sociology/Strong Sociologists: Consequences and Contradictions of a Field in Turmoil.” In Social
Research 59 (Winter 1992): 759-779.
“American Politics.” In Social Problems, edited by Craig Calhoun and George Ritzer, 728-48. York:
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McGraw Hill, 1992.
“Tres Caminhos para o Desenvolvimento: Mercado, Estado, e Sociedate Civil.” In Desenvolvimento,
Cooperaçao Internacionale as ONGs, edited and translated by Ilda Santiago, 17-34. Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil: IBASE/PNUD, 1992.
“Democracy Versus Sociology: Boundaries and Their Political Consequences.” In Where Culture Talks:
Exclusion and the Making of Society, edited by Michele Lamont and Marcel Fournier, 309-25. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992.
“The Left's Deadly Sin: Reflections on Richard Flack's Making History.” Theory and Society 21 (1992):
383-94.
“Libéralism et Sociologie: La Difficile Alliance.” In Les Formes Modernes de la démocratie: Politique et
économique, edited by Gérard Boismenu, Pierre Hamel, and Georges Labica, 29-52. Montréal: Les
Presses de L'Université de Montréal, 1992.
“Décentrage, Recentrage ou le Triomphe de l'ambivalence.” In America: Le Rêve Blessé, edited and
translated by Francois Burgess, 182-94. Paris: Editions Autrement, 1992. (Reprinted as “The Recentering
of America” Current History 91 (April 1992): 168-72.)
“Sociological Theory in the Absence of People: The Limits of Luhmann's Systems Theory.” Cardozo
Law Review 13 (March 1992): 1729-1743.
“Human Nature.” In Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by Edgar F. Borgatta and Marie L. Borgatta, vol.
2, 867-70. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
“Social Philosophy.” In Edgar F. Borgatta and Marie L. Borgatta, eds., Encyclopedia of Sociology, vol. 4,
1913-16. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
1991
“Mind, Self, Society and Computer: Artificial Intelligence and the Sociology of Mind.” American Journal
of Sociology 96 (March 1991): 1073-1096.
“The Right to Welfare and the Obligation to Society.” The Responsive Community 1 (Spring 1991): 1222.
“Az Öntevékenység Társadalmi Szerpe A Skandináv Országokban” (“The Social Role of Autonomous
Organizations in Scandinavia),” In A Harmadik Szektor [The Third Sector], edited by Eva Kuti and
Miklos Marschall, 179-84. Budapest: Nonprofit Kutatocsport, 1991.
“Revitalizing the Moral Tradition in Sociology.” Perspectives: The Theory Section Newsletter of the
American Sociological Association 14 (April 1991): 1-2.
1990
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“Social Theory and the Second Biological Revolution.” Social Research 57 (Fall 1990): 615-48.
“Sociology as a Vocation.” The American Sociologist 21 (Summer 1990): 136-49.
“Books Versus Journals: Two Ways of Publishing Sociology.” Sociological Forum 5 (September 1990):
477-89.
“Algorithmic Justice.” Cardozo Law Review 11 (July-August 1990): 1409-34. (Reprinted in
Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, edited by David Gray Carlson, Drucilla Cornell, and Michel
Rosenfeld, 361-86. New York: Routledge, 1992.)
1989-1980
“The Day Care Dilemma: A Scandinavian Perspective.” The Public Interest 95 (Spring 1989): 14-23.
“Welfare States and Moral Obligation: The Case of Scandinavia.” Politica 21.2 (1989): 149-64.
“Market, State, and Society as Codes of Moral Obligation.” Acta Sociologica 32.3 (1989): 221-36.
(Reprinted in The Legacy of Karl Polanyi: Market, State, and Society at the End of the
Twentieth Century, edited by Marguarite Mandell and Daniel Salle, 31-49. New York: St.
Martins, 1991.)
“Human Beings and the Sociology of Erik Olin Wright.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 34 (August
1989): 57-63.
“Welfare States, Voluntarism, and Private Charity.” Working Paper, Center for the Study of Philanthropy,
1989, New York: CUNY. (Reprinted in Norwegian by the Institute for Applied Social Research, Oslo.)
“Cultural Sources of the Reagan Revolution: The Antimodern Legacy.” In The Reagan Revolution?,
edited by B. B. Kymlicka and Jean V. Matthews, 65-84. Chicago: Dorsey, 1988.
“American Domestic Politics and the Alliance.” In Dealignment: A New Foreign Policy Perspective,
edited by Mary Kaldor and Richard Falk. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.
“Inauthentic Democracy: A Critique of Public Life in Modern Liberal Society.” Studies in Political
Economy 21 (Autumn 1986): 57-81.
“Crackpot Realism, Neo-Moralism, and U.S. Foreign Policy.” World Policy Journal 4 (Spring 1986):
251-75. (Reprinted in Harper's Jul. 1986: 6-19.)
“The Irony of Anti-Communism: Ideology and Interest in Postwar American Foreign Policy.” In The
Socialist Register, 1984, edited by Ralph Miliband, John Saville, and Marcel Leibman, 214-29. London:
Merlin Press, 1984.
“After Deployment: The Emergence of a New Europe.” World Policy Journal 2 (Spring 1984): 549-74.
“Il progetto di Reagan e cio cheesso implica per la crisi del capitaliso (e del marxismo).” (“Reagan's
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agenda and its implications for the crisis of capitalism, and Marxism.”) In Ester Fano et al,
Transformazioni e del welfare state, edited by Ester Fano et alia, translated by Idangela Cecere, 131-9.
Bari: Dedonato, 1983.
“Why Is There No Green Party in the United States?” World Policy Journal 1 (Fall 1983): 159-80.
“Is America Modern?” In Socialist Perspectives, edited by Phyllis and Julius Jacobson, 185-99. New
York and Princeton, NJ: Karz-Cohl, 1983.
“Perverse Politics and the Cold War.” In Exterminism and Cold War, edited by E.P. Thompson, 237-60.
London: Verso, 1982.
“USA: An End to the Honeymoon.” In World View 1983, edited by Francois Geze et alia, 272-79. New
York: Pantheon, 1982. (Republished in Great Britain by Pluto Press. Republished in L'etat du Monde,
Paris: Maspero, 1982.)
“Sociology, Liberalism, and the Radical Right.” New Left Review 128 (July-August 1981): 3-27.
(Published in Spanish as “Sociologia, Liberalismo, y derecha radical.” In Estados Unidos, Hoy, edited by
Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, 286-11. Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1984.)
“Presidential Power and the Crisis of Modernization.” Democracy 2 (April 1981): 19-32.
1979-78
“The Decline and Fall of Trilateralism: Reflections on the Failure of Elite Planning.” In Trilateralism,
edited by Holly Sklar, 533-552. Boston: South End Books, 1980.
“El Malestar del Capitalismo: La Democracia, El Socialismo y las Contradiciones del Capitalismo
Avanzado.” In America Latina 1 (April 1979): 7-42.
“The Resurgence of Cold War Ideology: The Case of the Committee on the Present Danger,” with Jerry
Sanders. In Capitalism And The State In U.S. - Latin American Relations, edited by Richard R. Fagen,
41-75. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979.
“The Costs of Delegitimation in Postwar America.” In Conflict And Control: Challenge To Legitimacy
Of Modern Governments, edited by Arthur Vidich and Ronald M. Glassman, 99-131. Beverly Hills: Sage
Publications, 1979.
“Quand les Etats-Unis deploient leur flotte.” Le Monde Diplomatique (March), p.3.
“The Child and the State.” Contemporary Crises 2 (1978): 407-35.
“Has Social Democracy A Future?” Comparative Politics (October 1978): 100-25.
“Analyzing the Welfare State.” Theory and Society 6 (1978): 100-25.
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(2) Op-Eds and Occasional Essays
2015
“Libertarianism’s Iron Cage: From Ayn Rand to Paul Rand.” Commonweal, September 15, 2015.
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/libertarianisms-iron-cage
“How the GOP’s Religious Freedom Rhetoric Could Undermine the Party.” Politico, September 8, 2015.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/republicans-religious-freedom-backfire-213130
“The Great Debate: Why Libertarianism is closer to Stalism than you think.” Reuters, June 15, 2015.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/06/15/rand-paul-and-the-sordid-purity-oflibertarianism/
2013
“The Paranoid Style: Then and Now,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review,
October 15, 2013.
“Jews Shape American Culture More Than Ever — Even as Pew Warns of Assimilation,” Forward.com,
October 16, 2013.
2012
“Identity Politics Run Amok,” The Conversation. Chronicle of Higher Education, August 30, 2012.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2012/08/30/identity-politics-run-amok/
“The Ridiculous Rise of Ayn Rand,” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 19, 2012.
“Magical Thinking,” Commonweal, May 18, 2012:7-8.
“Israel’s Moral Peril,” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 25, 2012.
2009
“One Liberalism,” Contexts, Spring 2009, Vol. 8 No.2:80.
2008
“Back to Crackpot Moralism,” World Policy Journal, Volume XXV, No.3, Fall 2008:218-220.
“How Revolt Ricocheted to the Right,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20, 2008:B10.
“The Race’s Real Winner,” The Washington Post, May 11, 2008:B01.
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“And the Winner Is….,” The Atlantic Monthly, March 2008:56-63.
Translated for Courrier Japon, January 1, 2009, Vol. no. 051:46-49.
“Faith and Tolerance,” The Boston Globe, February 29, 2008:A15.
“True Secularist,” Newsweek International (Web Exclusive). Lily Huang (Interviewer).
(8 February 2008) 10 February 2008. http://www.newsweek.com/id/109501
“The TNR Primary: Part Eight,” The New Republic, February 13, 2008:18.
“Academia (Kind of) Goes to War: Chomsky and His Children,” World Affairs: A Journal of Ideas and
Debate, Winter 2008:38-47.
2007
“Mormons and Money,” The New Republic, December 31, 2007:
“Our Dishonest Politics of Faith,” Daily News, December 10, 2007.
“The Future of the American Idea,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 2007:50.
“Mobilizing the Religious Left,” The New York Times, October 21, 2007:23.
“Dangerous Waters.” Guardian, October 15, 2007,
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/alan_wolfe/2007/10/in_the_second_decade_of.html
“What We Don’t Know about Gambling, but Should,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 12,
2007, B8.
“Divided We Stand.” Guardian, September 11, 2007,
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/alan_wolfe/2007/09/divided_we_stand.html
“The Borders of Liberalism.” Guardian, July 10, 2007,
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/alan_wolfe/2007/07/the_borders_of_liberalism.html
“Politische Philosophie in den USA: Rechte and Linke.” Die Gazette, Nummer 13/ Frühjahr 2007:42-45.
“In Charge but out of Touch.” Guardian, January 12, 2007,
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/alan_wolfe/2007/01/alan_wolfe_on_bush_1.html
“¿Teocracia Americana?” Foreign Policy Edición Española, Diciembre/Enero 2007, 60-63.
2006
“Worshiping at Work: Bringing religion into your company can be a test of faith – but not in the way you
might expect,” Inc. Magazine, December 2006, 63-64.
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“Free Speech, Israel, and Jewish Illiberalism,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 17, 2006,
B6.
“Wise Up, Voters,” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2006.
“Why Conservatives Can’t Govern,” Washington Monthly, July/August 2006, 32-40.
“This Panic won’t create air safety,” The Boston Globe, August 23, 2006, A8.
“The Territory of Belief.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 28, 2006, B11.
“How Bush’s Bad Ideas May Lead to Good Ones.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2006
B15.
2005
”Nobody Here but Us Liberals,” The New York Times, July 2005:23.
“Aufgekarter Islam,” Suddeutsche Zeitung Nr. 43, February 22, 2005:V2/13.
2004
“Die Doppelmoral der Evangelikalen.” Cicero Magazain fur Politische Keitur, December, 2004: 14-15.
“Politics as War.” The Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 2004:31-42.
“A Revival of Religion.” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 22, 2004:B6.-B8.
“Why America Should Welcome Tariq Ramadan.” Chronicle of Higher Education, September 10,
2004:B20.
“Partisanship pulls Voters Two Ways.” Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2004:B13.
“A Fascist Philosopher Helps us Understand Contemporary Politics.” Chronicle of Higher Education,
April 2, 2004:B16-B17.
“Gay Marriage could Revive the Political Culture War – or End It, Once and for All.” Commonwealth
Magazine, Winter 2004:67-70.
2003
“The Two-Nation Trap.” The Boston Sunday Globe, December 28, 2003:D1-4.
“Dieting for Jesus.” Prospect (UK), December 18, 2003.
“Bottom-up Culture Wars.” Blueprint, Volume 2003, No. 6:20-22.
Alan Wolfe
Page 15
“Losing Battle: Why the Democrats should pursue defeat in 2004.” The Boston Sunday Globe, July 6,
2003:H1-4.
“Keeping the Faiths.” The Financial Times, April 17, 2003.
“Desperately Wicked: Reckoning with Evil,” Books and Culture, March/April 2003:26-28.
2002
“The Men who Disappeared.” The Boston Sunday Globe, December 22, 2002:D1-5.
“From the Muslim World, 13 Scholars in Search of Common Ground.” Chronicle of Higher Education,
November 22, 2002:B10-11.
“The Phantom Empire.” The Boston Globe November 17, 2002:D1-4.
"Politics at the Margins." Blueprint September/October 2002: 43-45.
"The Plunge of Public Trust." The Boston Globe 28 July, 2002: E1-E2.
"Converting to Modernity." Commonwealth, Summer 2002: 52-57.
“The Intellectual Advantages of a Roman Catholic Education,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 31
May 2002: B7 – B9.
“His Book stood out in a Crowd,” Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2002
“Shades of the ‘60s.” Newsweek Dec 2001-Feb 2002: 46-8.
“Faith and Diversity in American Religion.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 8 Feb 2002: B7.
“The Left’s Self-Destructive Extremism.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 12 Oct 2001: B13.
"Shades of the 60's: Academic radicals form the core of an angry, reactionary and increasingly irrelevant
force - American anti-Americanism." Newsweek Special Edition Magazine December 2001 - February
2002: 46-48.
2001
"The God of a Diverse People." The New York Times 14 October, 2001: Sec. 4, p. 13.
"Linked at Last." The Boston Globe 7 October, 2001: D1.
"Bush's Gift to American's Extremists." The New York Times 19 August, 2001: Sec. 4; p. 13.
Alan Wolfe
Page 16
"Faith Matters." Blueprint July/August 2001: 24-29.
"Questions of Justice." The Chronicle of Higher Education 8 June, 2001: B10.
"This kind of Nuclear Proliferation." The Wall Street Journal 16 May, 2001: 22
“The Final Freedom.” The New York Times Magazine 18 Mar 2001: 48-51.
“Professors are Unconvincing in Shielding Their Interests.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 2 Mar
2001: B20.
"The Right's Ally: Liberalism." The New York Times 23 January, 2001: Sec. 7, p. 13.
2000
“Private Fears Made Public.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 1 Dec 2000: B24.
“Other People.” Co-authored with Jytte Klausen. Prospect Dec 2000: 28-33.
“Religious Diversity as a Key to Religious Freedom.” Forward 10 Nov 2000: 9.
“The Tyranny of the Undecided Voter.” The New York Times 22 Oct 2000: WK15.
“The Opening of the Evangelical Mind.” The Atlantic Monthly Oct 2000: 55-76.
“Not the Ordinary Kind, In Politics or at Harvard.” The New York Times 9 Sept 2000:B9.
“What Scholarship Reveals about Politics and Religion.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 2 Sept
2000: B7-9.
“The Moral Sense in Estate Tax Repeal.” The New York Times 7 Jul 2000: A19.
“Can Gay-Rights Groups Handle Success?” The Wall Street Journal 13 Jun 2000: A26.
“The Pursuit of Autonomy?” The New York Times Magazine 7 May 2000: 53-56.
“When the Music of Time Stops.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 21 Apr 2000: B10.
“Uncle Sam Doesn’t Always Know Best.” The Wall Street Journal 29 Mar 2000: A22.
“The Risky Power of the Academic Boycott.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 17 Mar 2000: A72.
“Under God, Not Indivisible.” The New York Times 27 Feb 2000: WK 17.
“Liberalism and Catholicism.” The American Prospect 31 Jan 2000: 16-21.
1999
Alan Wolfe
Page 17
“TRB: No Deal.” The New Republic 6 Dec 1999: 6.
“The Hillsday Tragedy Holds Lessons for Colleges Everywhere.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 3
Dec 1999: A72.
“The New Politics of Inequality.” The New York Times 22 Sept 1999: A27.
“High Time for Conservatives to Back Bureau.” The Houston Chronicle 12 Sept 1999: Outlook 1.
“The Mystique of Betty Friedan.” The Atlantic Monthly Sept 1999: 98-105.
“The Revival of Moral Inquiry in the Social Sciences.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 3 Sept 1999:
B4.
“Personal Character Goes Only So Far.” The New York Times 28 Jun 1999: A17.
“The Power Elite Now.” The American Prospect May-Jun 1999: 90.
“Littleton Takes the Blame.” The New York Times 22 May 1999: A23.
“Judging the President: The Complex Role of Religion in Public Life.” Brookings Review 17 (Spring
1999): 36.
“Catholic Universities Can Be the Salvation of Pluralism on American Campuses.” The Chronicle of
Higher Education 26 Feb 1999: B6.
“Look Who’s Turning Off and Tuning Out This Time.” The New York Times 22 Feb 1999: A17.
“Henry Hyde’s New Obligation to the Nation.” Chicago Tribune, 16 Feb 1999: SEC 1, 15.
1998
“How a for Profit University Can be Invaluable to the Traditional Liberal Arts.” The Chronicles of
Higher Education 4 Dec 1998: B4-5.
“Oh, Those Beltway Innocents.” The New York Times 30 Aug 1998: WK 13.
“Understanding ‘60s Radicals in the ‘90s University.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 14 Aug 1998:
B6-7.
“Religion, With a Grain of Salt.” The New York Times 14 Jun 1998: A15.
“A Tide of Tolerance Begins to Rise Slowly.” Orlando Sentinel Insight 29 Mar 1998: G1.
“Couch Potato Politics.” The New York Times 15 Mar 1998: A17. (Reprinted in The International Herald
Tribune 27 Mar 1998: A8.)
Alan Wolfe
Page 18
“Is Affirmative Action on the Way Out? Should It Be?” Commentary Mar 1998: 56-7.
“The Homosexual Exception.” The New York Times Magazine 8 Feb 1998: 46-47.
“Scholarship on Family Values: Weighing Competing Claims.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 23
Jan 1998: B7-8.
“Thanks to Him, We Have Rediscovered the Middle Class.” Palm Beach Post 4 Jan 1998: 5E.
1997
“Welcome, Dissenting Voices in the Race Issue.” Vancouver Sun 5 Dec 1997: A17.
“On Race, Actions Speak Most Clearly.” The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC) 4 Dec 1997: A23.
“When Its Better To Do Than To Talk.” Newsday 18 Nov 1997: A43.
“State of the Debate: The Moral Meaning of Work.” The American Prospect Sept-Oct 1997: 82-90.
“A Welcome Revival of Religion in the Academy.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 19 Sept 1997:
B4-5.
“A Bewildering Array of Belief.” The New York Times 14 Sept 1997: SEC 7, 34.
“Is Civil Society Obsolete? Revisiting predictions of the decline of civil society in Whose Keeper?” The
Brookings Review 15 (Fall, 1997): 9-12.
“On Loyalty.” The Wilson Quarterly 21 (Autumn, 1997): 46-56.
“Immigration Angst.” The New York Times 23 Jul 1997: A25.
“The Promises and Flaws of Public Scholarship.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 19 Jan 1997: B4-5.
1996-86
“The Culture of Cultural Studies.” Partisan Review 3 (Summer 1996): 485-492.
“The New Class Comes Home.” Partisan Review LX (Fall 1993): 708-716.
“Middle-Class Moralities.” The Wilson Quarterly 17 (Summer, 1993): 49-64.
“Whose Body Politic?” The American Prospect 12 (Winter 1993): 99-108.
“American Life in the Nineties: A Snapshot.” Harper’s Magazine Nov 1991: 34-7.
“Up From Humanism.” The American Prospect 2 (Winter 1991): 112-127.
Alan Wolfe
Page 19
“Is Sociology Dangerous?” Tikkun 1 (Summer 1986): 96-101.
(3) BOOK REVIEWS:
2015
“Class Structure is Surprisingly Strong in the United States.” Review of Our Kids: The American Dream
in Crisis, by Robert Putnam. The Washington Post, March 16, 2015; Australian Financial Review, June
10, 2015.
2014
“The Wealth of Ideas.” Review of Liberalism, by Edmund Fawcett. The New York Times Sunday Book
Review, July 25, 2014.
2011
“The Big Shrink.” Review of The Age of Fracture by Daniel T. Rodgers, The New Republic, March 10,
2011.
“Studies Show.” Review of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and
Achievement by David Brooks, The New Republic, March 24, 2011:18-22.
“Religious Realism.” Review of Why Niebuhr Now? By John Patrick Diggins, The New Republic, June
27, 2011:
“The Power of Love.” Review of Machiavelli: A Biography by Miles J. Unger, The New Republic, July
13, 2011:
“The Origins of Religion, Beginning with the Big Bang.” Review of Religion in Human Evolution:
From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age by Robert M. Bellah, The New York Times,
October 2, 2011:
2010
Review of The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism by Roger D.
Hodge, The Washington Post, October 24, 2010.
“The Education of Diane Ravitch.” Review of The Death and Life of the Great American School System:
How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch, The New York Times, May 16,
2010:14.
“Joy to the World.” Review of The Politics of Happiness: What Government can learn from the New
Alan Wolfe
Page 20
Research on Well-Being by Derek Bok, The New York Times, February 21, 2010:16.
“Game Change.” Review of Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by
John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. The Washington Post, January 17, 2010:B01.
2009
“Riding God’s Wave: The Secret of Rick Warren’s spectacular success.” Review of Prophet of Purpose
by Rick Warren, Slate, October 26, 2009.
“A God for All Seasons.” Reviews of The Case for God by Karen Armstrong; Saving God: Religion after
Idolatry by Mark Johnston; God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World by
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge; and The Evolution of God by Robert Wright, The National
Interest, September/October 2009.
2008
“Uncommon Ground.” Review of Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the
North by Thomas J. Sugrue, The New York Times Book Review, November 9, 2008:9.
“Gonzo Sociology.” Review of The Politics of Truth: Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills edited by
John Summers, The New Republic, October 8, 2008:
“Righting the Left.” Review of Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism by BernardHenri Levy, translated, from the French, by Benjamin Moser, The Boston Globe, September 14, 2008,
D6.
“Hedonic Man: The New Economics and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Review of Happiness: A Revolution
in Economics by Bruno S. Frey and Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions
by Dan Ariely, The New Republic, July 9, 2008:
“Why Me? The Case against the Sovereign Self.” Review of Sovereignty: God, State and Self by Jean
Bethke Elshtain, Slate.com, June 9, 2008.
“The Forgotten Philosopher.” Review of John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand by Richard Reeves, The
Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, 2008:B6.
Review of The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections by John C. Green, Political
Science Quarterly, Spring 2008:162-164.
“Peace and Power.” Review of The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States,
and the Quest for a Global Nation by Strobe Talbott, The Boston Globe, January 13, 2008:K6.
2007
“Evangelicals Everywhere.” Review of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the
American Elite by D. Michael Lindsay, The New York Times, November 25, 2007:24.
Alan Wolfe
Page 21
“Faith in the Center?” Review of Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America’s Faith-Based
Futures by John J. DiIulio, Jr., The American Prospect, October 22, 2007:48.
“Brains and Beliefs: The Schisms Within American Christianity.” Review of Head and Heart by Gary
Wills, The New Republic, October 8, 2007:57-61.
“Contemp.” Review of The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays Edited by George A. Panichas, The New
Republic, July 2, 2007:50.
“Of Myths and Men: A Historian shines a Spotlight on Moments of Presidential Greatness.” Review of Presidential
Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 by Michael Beschloss. The Washington
Post, June 3, 2007:BW06.
“Goodbye, Grassy Knoll: A famously effective prosecutor tried to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”
Review of The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi. The Washington Post, May 27,
2007:BW03.
“A Novel Sensibility.” Review of Inventing Human Rights: A History by Lynn Hunt, Commonweal, May 4,
2007:26-27.
“The Ignoble Years.” Review of Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in American, 1865-1900 by Jack Beatty.
The Washington Monthly, May 2007:55-58.
“Social Skills.” Review of The Civil Sphere by Jeffrey C. Alexander. The New Republic April 23, 2007.
“None (But Me) Dare Call It Treason.” Review of The Enemy at Home by Dinesh D’Souza. The New
York Times Book Review, January 21, 2007:6.
2006
“The God that Failed.” Review of Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction by David Kuo.
The New Republic, November 6, 2006.
“Should We Shut Up About Diversity?” Review of The Trouble with Diversity by Walter Benn
Michaels, www.slate.com, October 3, 2006.
“One Nation Under God; A journalist argues eloquently for the separation of church and state.” Review
of The Holy Vote: The politics of Faith in America by Ray Suarez. The Washington Post,
September 17, 2006.
“Defending the Ph.D.’s. Review of What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom politics and
“Bias” in Higher Education by Michael Berube. The New York Times, September 10, 2006:13.
“Foggy Bottom Faith.” Review of The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and the
World Affairs by Madeleine Albright. Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Summer 2006, 75-81.
Review of When Faiths Collide by Martin E. Marty. The Journal of Religion, April 2006, Volume 86,
Alan Wolfe
Page 22
Number 2:345-347.
“The more things change, the more we stay the same.” CommonWealth Magazine, Spring 2006, 70-74.
“Getting In.” Review of A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America by
Aristide R. Zohlberg. The New Republic, May 8, 2006, 30-37.
“The Evangelical Mind Revisited,” Change Magazine, March/April 2006, 8-13.
“The Common Touch.” Review of A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan by Michael
Kazin. The Washington Post Book World, February 5, 2006, 6.
“The Reason for Everything.” Review of The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to Freedom,
Capitalism and Western Success by Rodney Stark. The New Republic, January 16, 2006, 26-33.
“Citizen.” Review of Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy by Louise W. Knight. The New York
Times Book Review, January 15, 2006, 12.
2005
“Money Changes Everything.” Review of Class Matters by Correspondents of the New York Times. The
New York Times, September, 2005:8.
“The Real Question before the Court,” The Boston Globe, July 10, 2005.
“Nobody Here but Us Liberals,” The New York Times Book Review, July 3, 2005:23.
“Crisis = Opportunity: An American idealized Europe; a Brit admires it skeptically” Review of The
European Dream by Jeremy Rifkin. Internationale Politik, Summer issue (2/2005) Vol. 6:28-31.
“The Great Jewish-American Synthesis,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 3, 2005:B19-B11.
“What God Owes Jefferson.” Review of God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left
Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis and Taking Faith Seriously edited by Mary Jo Bane, Brent Coffin and
Richard Higgins. The New Republic, May 23, 2005:35-41.
“Evangelical Entrepreneurialism: How Religion is Shaped by American Culture,” The Berlin Journal,
Number 10, Spring 2005:15-17.
“Common Culture, Common Ground: American Christians are as American as they are Christian,” The
Pennsylvania Gazette, Mar/April 2005:18-19.
“Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950.” Review
of Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950 by
Charles Murray. Common Knowledge 11, no. 2 (2005):352.
Alan Wolfe
Page 23
“Common Sense.” Review of The Roads to Modernity: The British, French and American
Enlightenments, by Gertrude Himmelfarb. Commonweal, January 28, 2005:40-42.
2004
“Not-Believing Amid a Time of Fervent Belief.” Review of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the
Future of Reason, by Sam Harris. Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Fall/Winter 2004:25.
“A Global Gospel of Freedom.” Review of The Universal Hunger for Liberty: Why the Clash of
Civilizations Is Not Inevitable, by Michael Novak. America, November 8, 2004:30-32.
“A Democrat’s Republican.” Review of Why Lincoln Matters: Today More than Ever, by Mario M.
Cuomo. Commonweal, September 10, 2004:27-29.
“The New Pamphleteers: When the Establishment disappears, Polemics fill the Void.” The New York
Times Book Review, July 11, 2004:12-13.
“For America.” Review of Anti-Americanism by Jean-Francois Revel, translated from the French by
Diarmid Cammell; On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and always have) in the Future Tense, by
David Brooks. The American Prospect, June 2004:50-51.
“Native Son.” Review of Who Are We? The Challenges to American’s National Security by Samuel P.
Huntington. Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004:120-125
“Among the Non-Believers: The Strange Career of Atheism in America.” Reviews of The Atheist:
Madalyn Murray O’Hair by Bryan F. Le Beau; Ungodly: The Passions, Torments, and Murder of
Madalyn Murray O’Hair by Ted Dracos; Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan
Jacoby; Doubt: A History, by Jennifer Michael Hecht. The New Republic, April 12, 2004:38.
“Nobody’s Got No Class.” Review of The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans are Doing Wrong to
Get Ahead” by David Callahan. Boston Sunday Globe, 15 February, 2004:D6.
2003
“War & war by other means.” Review of The George W. Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment Edited
by Fred I. Greenstein; America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy by Ivo H. Daalder and
James M. Lindsay; Imperial America: The Bush Assault on World Order by John Newhouse.
Commonweal, 5 December, 2003:18-23.
“How the Counterculture Went to Church.” Review of Knocking on Heaven’s Door: American Religion
in the Age of Counterculture. By Mark Oppenheimer. Books & Culture November/December, 2003:34.
“Cross Purposes.” Review of A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America by
Peter Steinfels. The New Republic 22 September, 2003:36-42.
“Witch-Hunts and Child Abuse.” Review of No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and other
Alan Wolfe
Page 24
Terrors of Our Time by Dorothy Rabinowitz. Commonweal 9 May, 2003:30-31.
“Moral Crisis.” Review of The Culture of Morality: Social Development, Context, and Culture by Elliot
Turiel. Contexts Vol. 2, Number 2, Spring 2003:65-66.
“Anti-American Studies: The difference between criticism and hatred,” Review of The Futures of
American Studies edited by Donald E. Pease and Robyn Wiegman; The New American Studies by John
Carlos Rowe; and Death of a Nation: American Culture and the End of Exceptionalism by David W.
Noble. The New Republic 10, February 2003:25-32.
“Let’s Argue: Political Activism, mainline style.” Review of The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based
Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism Edited by Robert Wuthnow and John H. Evans.
The Christian Century 11, January 2003:26-30.
2002
“Is the State Always Our Enemy?” Review of Free For All: Defending Liberty in America Today by
Wendy Kaminer. Commonweal, November 22, 2002: 24-26.
“Why Separation of Church and State is Still a Good Idea.” Review of Separation of Church and State by
Philip Hamburger. Books and Culture September/October, 2002:6-7.
“We Should Remember He was Human.” Review of Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon
Johnson, Volume 3 by Robert A. Caro. Literary Review 2 August 2002: 6-7.
“Idiot Time.” Reviews of Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich by Kevin
Phillips and Stupid White Men…and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!” by Michael
Moore. The New Republic July 8 & 15, 2002: 32-37.
"The Next Best Thing." Review of The Tipping Point: How Little Things can make a Big Difference by
Malcolm Gladwell. The New York Times Book Review 5 March, 2002: 8.
“The People Stand Ready to Sacrifice- But Someone Has to Ask.” The Boston Globe 3 Feb 2002: C1.
“The Fame Game.” Review of Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline by Richard A. Posner. The New
Republic 31 Dec 2001 & 7 Jan 2002: 34-38.
2001
“I’m O.K.—You’re a Racist.” Review of Race Experts: How Racial Etiquette, Sensitivity Training, and
New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights Revolution, by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn. The New York Times
Book Review 9 Dec 2001: 27.
"The Fame Game." Review of Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline by Richard Posner. The New
Republic 31 December, 2001:34-38.
Alan Wolfe
Page 25
"The Snake; Globalization, America, and the Wretched of the Earth." Review of Empire by Michael
Hardt and Antonio Negri. The New Republic 1 October 2001: 31.
"All in the Family." Review of The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American
Family by William Bennett. Commonwealth Magazine, Fall 2001: 82-83.
"The Barber of Cavil." Review of The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House by
Benjamin Barber. Commonweal Magazine 14 September 2001: 28-30.
"Holy Realists." Review of Heaven Below Early Pentecostals and American Culture, by Grant
Wacker. The New Republic 3 September 2001: 59-61.
"Strangled by Roots." Review of American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century, by Gary
Gestile. The New Republic 28 May 2001: 29-33.
“Alien Nation.” Review of Politics in the Vernacular, by Will Kymlicka. Culture, Citizenship, and
Community, by Joseph H. Carens. Rethinking Multiculturalism, by Bhikhu Parekh. Culture and
Equality, by Brian Barry. Making Patriots, by Walter Berns. The New Republic 26 Mar 2001: 30-36.
“Are You Better Off Now…” Review of The Future of Success, by Robert Reich. The New York Times
Book Review 7 Jan 2001: 13.
2000
“Subject Matter Matters.” Review of Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, by Diane Ravitch.
The New Republic 11 Dec 2000: 38-41.
“Ye of Little Faith.” Review of God’s Name in Vain, by Stephen Carter. Commonweal 3 Nov 2000: 2930.
“Undialectical Materialism.” Review of An All Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in
Modern America, by Gary Cross. Irrational Exuberance, by Robert J. Shiller. The Loss of Happiness in
Market Democracies, by Robert E. Lane. Do Americans Shop Too Much?, by Juliet Schor. Lead Us Into
Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism, by James Twitchell. One Market Under God, by
Thomas Frank. The New Republic 23 Oct 2000: 29-35.
“The Greening of America.” Review of Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They
Got There, by David Brooks. The New Republic 12 Jun 2000: 39-44.
“Are Things Really This Bad?” Review of The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without
Good and Evil, by James Davison Hunter. Commonweal 2 Jun 2000: 22-4.
“With Friends Like This.” Review of Joseph McCarthy: Re-examining the life and legacy of America's
Most Hated Senator, by Arthur Herman. Times Literary Supplement 26 May 2000: 10.
“Help Those in Need, Ask Something in Return.” Review of The New Social Question, by Pierre
Rosanvallon. The Wall Street Journal 17 Apr 2000: A30-32.
Alan Wolfe
Page 26
“Sects in the City.” Review of The Other American, by Maurice Isserman. The New Republic 3 Apr
2000: 34-38.
“The Next Best Thing.” Review of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, by
Malcolm Gladwell. The New York Times Book Review 5 Mar 2000: 36.
“The Hermeneutic Hole.” Review of Serving the Word: Literalism in America from the Pulpit to the
Bench, by Vincent Crapanzano. The New Republic 31 Jan 2000: 36-40.
1999
“A Necessary Good.” Review of A Necessary Evil, by Gary Wills. The New Republic 1 Nov 1999: 3740.
“Study Hall.” Review of The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, by Nicholas
Lemann. The Los Angeles Times 24 Oct 1999: Book Review, 10b.
“Bowling With Others.” Review of The Ladd Report, by Everett Carll Ladd. The New York Times Book
Review 17 Oct 1999: 20.
“The Ultimate Escape From Life.” Review of Night Falls Fast, by Kay Redfield Jamison. The Wall
Street Journal 13 Oct 1999: A28.
“The Shock of the Old.” Review of The Great Disruption, by Francis Fukuyama. The New Republic 2
Aug 1999: 42-45.
“All The President’s Mendacity.” Review of Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate, by Bob
Woodward. The Washington Post 6 Jul 1999: C3.
“Risky Business.” Review of No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton,
by Christopher Hitchens. The Washington Post 4 Jul 1999: 13.
“The Revolution that Never Was.” Review of Against Liberalism and A Case for Conservatism, by John
Kekyes. Against Liberalism, by Paul Gottfried. Conservatism: An Anthology, edited by Jerry Muller.
The Future and Its Enemies, by Virginia Postrel. The New Republic 7 Jun 1999: 42-7.
“Margaret Mead Goes to Harlem.” Review of No Shame in My Game by Katherine S. Newman. The New
Republic 10 May 1999: 48-55.
“A Partisan for Democracy.” Review of On Democracy, by Robert A. Dahl. Commonweal 9 Apr 1999:
38-9.
“Mixed Blessings.” Review of Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First
Century, by Randall Kenan. The Color of Our Future, by Farai Chideya. The New York Times Book
Review 14 Mar 1999.
Alan Wolfe
Page 27
1998
“Virtue’s Skin.” Review of The African American Book of Values, by Steven Barhoga. The New
Republic 21 Dec 1998: 43-45.
“Beneath the Skin.” Review of A Dream Deferred, by Shelby Steele. The New Republic 23 Nov 1998:
32-7.
“Defining Freedom Isn’t Easy.” Review of The Story of American Freedom, by Eric Foner.
Commonweal 6 Nov 1998: 22-4.
“Affirmative Action: The Fact Gap.” Review of The Shape of the River, by William G. Bowen and
Derek Bok. The Black White Test Score Gap, edited by Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips. The
New York Times Book Review 25 Oct 1998: 15-16.
“We’re Ok, are They Ok?” Review of The Therapuetic State, by James A. Nolan. Times Literary
Supplement 4 Sept 1998: 30.
“The Saint.” Review of Just as I Thought, by Grace Paley. The New Republic 29 Jun 1998: 35-9.
“Enough Blame to Go Around.” Review of Someone Else’s House, by Tamar Jacoby. The New York
Times Book Review 21 June 1998: 12-13.
“Groups and Happiness.” Review of Membership and Morals: The Personal Use of Pluralism in America,
by Nancy L. Rosenblum. The New Republic 1 Jun 1998: 36-40.
“Is Liberalism Now Exhausted?” Review of The Dark Side of the Left, by Richard J. Ellis. Liberalism
and its Discontents, Alan Brinkley. Times Literary Supplement 22 May 1998: 11-12.
“Make Nice, Not War.” Review of Civility, by Stephen Carter. The Wall Street Journal 28 Apr 1998: 16.
“White Magic in America.” Review of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, by Stephen
Covey. The New Republic 23 Feb 1998: 26-34.
“Climbing the Mountain.” Review of Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65, by Taylor
Branch. The New York Times Book Review 18 Jan 1998: 12-13
1997
“The Professor of Desire.” Review of Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life, by James H. Jones. The
New Republic 24 Nov 1997: 31-8.
“A Party Needs Ideas.” Review of The New Majority: Toward a Popular Progressive Politics, edited by
Stanley B. Greenburg and Theda Skocpol. Commonweal 7 Nov 1997: 32.
“The Facts and The Feelings.” Review of America in Black and White, by Stephen Thernstrom and
Abigail Thernstrom. A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America, by David K. Shipler. The
Alan Wolfe
Page 28
New Republic 29 Sept 1997: 27-33.
“A Bewildering Array of Belief.” Review of W. E. B. DuBois and American Political Thought, by
Adolph Reed, Jr. The New York Times Book Review 14 Sept 1997: 34.
“Only 3 Million.” Review of Money: Who has How Much and Why, by Andrew Hacker. Commonweal
15 Aug 1997: 28-9.
“Hidden Injuries.” Review of Contempt and Pity: Social Policy of the Damaged Black Psyche, 18801996, by Daryl Michael Scott. The New Republic 7 Jul 1997: 32-5.
“The Jeremiah Racket.” Review of The Assault on Parenthood: How our Culture Undermines Family, by
Dana Mack. The New Republic 2 Jun 1997: 35-9.
“Sociology at its Limits.” Review of The Order of Terror, by Wolfgang Sofksy. Commonweal 23 May
1997: 28-9.
“Beyond Black and White.” Review of Color Blind, by Ellis Cole. The New York Times Book Review 9
Feb 1997: 11-12.
“Wired for Democracy.” Review of Virtuous Reality, by Jon Katz. Washington Post Book World 19 Jan
1997: 6.
1996-90
“Up from Scientism,” Review of Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives, by
Frank Sulloway, The New Republic 23 Dec 1996: 29-35.
“Affirmative Action, Inc.” The New Yorker 25 Nov 1996: 106-15.
“The Journey So Far.” Review of Miles to Go, by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Commonweal 8 Nov 1996:
17-19.
“America’s German Intellectual.” Review of Max Weber, by John Patrick Diggins. The Washington
Post Book World 13 Oct 1996: 6-7.
“Before Justice.” Review of Avishai Margalit. The New Republic 27 May 1996: 33-6.
“Schools for Scandal.” Review of the Scandal of Pleasure, by Wendy Steiner. Commonweal 5 Apr 1996:
28-9.
“Higher Learning.” Review of George Marsden and others. Lingua Franca 6 (March/April 1996): 70-7.
“The Thinning of Democracy.” Review of Self-Rule, by Robert Wiebe. Commonweal 14 July 1995: 1920.
“The Sources of Obligation.” Review of Thick and Thin, by Michael Walzer. Commonweal 21 Oct
Alan Wolfe
Page 29
1994: 24-5.
“The End of Essences.” Review of The Promise of Pragmatism, by John P. Diggins. The New Republic 8
Aug 1994: 34-8.
“The Gender Question.” The New Republic 6 June 1994: 27-34.
“Pressure Points.” Review of Stephen Holmes. The New Republic 13 Dec: 1993: 44-5.
“Only Connect.” Review of The Moral Sense, by James Q. Wilson. Mother-Infant Bonding: A Scientific
Fiction, by Diane E. Eyer. The New Republic 4 Oct 1993: 33-8.
“School Daze.” The New Republic 8 Feb 1993: 25-33.
“The Mothers of Invention.” Review of Theda Skocpol. The New Republic 4 and 11 Jan. 193: 28-35.
“The New American Dilemma.” The New Republic 13 April 1992: 30-37.
“Politics by Other Means.” Review of James D. Hunter. New Republic 11 Nov 1991: 39-42.
“The Professor of Desire.” Review of Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis and Love's Body, by Norman O.
Brown. The New Republic 3 June 1991: 29-35.
“Aron's Rod.” Review of Memoirs: Fifty Years of Political Reflection, by Raymond Aron. The New
Republic 16 Apr. 1990: 35-9.
“The Return of the Melting Pot.” The New Republic 31 Dec 1990: 27-34.
“Dirt and Democracy.” The New Republic 19 Feb 1990: 27-31.
“Do Those Who Study Norms Have Any Themselves?” Review of The Social Order, edited by James F.
Short. Sociological Forum 3 (Spring 1988): 314-19.
(4) Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals 1993-1978:
Review of Watergate in American Memory, by Michael Schudson. Contemporary Sociology 22 (Jan
1993): 111-113.
Review of Hidden Technocrats: The New Class and the New Capitalism, edited by Hansfried Kellner and
Frank W. Heuberger. First Things 27 (Nov. 1992): 55-57.
Review of The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, by Eviatar Zerubavel. Sociological
Forum 7 (June 1992): 375-80.
Review of The Rhetoric of Reaction, by Albert Hirschman. Contemporary Sociology 21 (Jan. 1992): 3032.
Alan Wolfe
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Review of The Moral Dimension, edited by Thomas E. Wren. Ethics 101 (Apr. 1991): 669.
Review of Three Forms of Power: From Domination to Transformation, by Thomas E. Wartenberg.
Contemporary Sociology 20 (Mar. 1991): 244-5.
Review of Sources of the Self, by Charles Taylor. Contemporary Sociology 19 (July 1990): 627-28.
Review of Property by Alan Ryan, Socialism, by Bernard Crick, and Democracy, by Anthony Arblaster.
Contemporary Sociology 18 (Sept. 1989): 840-1.
Review of The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom. Partisan Review 55.1 (1988): 156-159.
Review of Daniel Bell and the Decline of American Radicalism, by Howard Brick. American Journal of
Sociology 92 (Mar. 1987): 1224-6.
Review of Prisoners of the American Dream, by Mike Davis. Contemporary Sociology 16 (Jan. 1987):
31-3.
Review of Strong Democracy, by Benjamin Barber. Society 23 (Jan.-Feb. 1986): 89-91.
Review of Sociological Insight: An Introduction to Non-obvious Sociology, by Randall Collins.
American Journal of Sociology 91.5 (Mar. 1986): 1235-7.
Review of Social Change and Cultural Crisis, by Richard Lowenthal and Beginning: On the Generations
of Cultures and the Origins of the West, by Franz Borkenau. Contemporary Sociology 15.1 (Jan. 1986)
132-4.
Review of The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor, and Government in the Public Mind, by S.M. Lipset
and William Schneider. American Journal of Sociology 51 (Jan. 1985): 947-9.
Review of After Marx, edited by Terence Ball and James Farr, Sociology and Socialism, by Tom
Bottomore, and Readings in Marxist Sociology, edited by Tom Bottomore and Patrick Goode.
Contemporary Sociology 14 (May 1985): pp. 296-8.
Review of The Disabled State,by Deborah Stone. Contemporary Sociology 14 (Sept. 1985): 640.
Review of Who Gets What From Government?, by Benjamin Page. Contemporary Sociology 13 (January
1984): 94-95.
Review of Marx's Politics: Communists and Citizens, by Alan Gilbert. Contemporary Sociology 12 (Jan.
1983): 85-6.
Review of Voices of Protest, by Allan Brinkley and Reagan, by Lou Cannon. Working Papers (Jan.-Feb.
1983): 59-62.
Review of Reaganomics, by Robert Lekachman. Political Science Quarterly 97 (Winter 1982-83): 675-7.
Alan Wolfe
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Review of Friendly Fascism, by Bertram Gross. Contemporary Sociology 10 (Sept. 1981): 630.
Review of The Political Economy of Regulation, by Barry Mitnick. Contemporary Sociology 10 (July
1981): 578-9.
Review of Soviet Leadership in Transition, by Jerry Hough. Journal Of International Affairs (1981).
Review of Capital, Class And Social Policy by Norman Ginsburg and The Political Economy Of The
Welfare State, by Ian Gough. The International Journal Of Urban And Regional Research (London) 4.3
(Sept. 1980): 423-8.
Review of The Origins Of International Economic Disorder, by Fred Block. Contemporary Sociology 8
(May 1979): 441-2.
Review of The State, Administration, and The Individual, by Michael Hill. American Political Science
Review 71 (December, 1978) 840.
(5) TRANSLATIONS:
Jean Claude Girardin, “Sur la Theorie Marxiste de l'Etat,” LES TEMPES MODERNES (November,
1972) as Politics And Society, 4 (Winter 1974): 193-223. With Amy Beth Bridges.
AWARDS:
John Gilbert Winant Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford, England. Spring
2011.
Honorary Degree: Doctorate, Humane Letters, St. Joseph’s University of Philadelphia, PA, May 13,
2006.
George Herbert Walker Bush Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Fall 2004.
Honorary Degree: Doctorate, Humane Letters, Loyola University of Maryland, March 22, 2002
The New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Moral Freedom, 2001.
Award for Public Understanding of Sociology, American Sociological Association, 2001
The Robert Ezra Park Award for Outstanding Achievements in Sociological Practice, Sociological
Practice Association, 1999.
The New York Times Notable Book of the Year, One Nation After All, 1998.
Winner, Sociological Theory Prize, Theory Section, American Sociological Association, for “Mind, Self,
Society, and Computer,” August 1991.
Alan Wolfe
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Co-winner, C. Wright Mills Award, Society for the Study of Social Problems, August 1990 for Whose
Keeper?.
Honorable Mention, Distinguished Scholarly Contribution, American Sociological Association, 1991, for
Whose Keeper?
Fulbright Professor of American Studies, University of Copenhagen, 1984-85.
Nomination for the Pulitzer Prize for The Seamy Side Of Democracy, 1973.
Who's Who (2001 Edition)
Who’s Who in the East
Who’s Who in the World
Contemporary Authors
Directory of American Scholars
GRANTS:
“Enduring Questions course of Evil” funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, 2009-2010.
Director, Summer Seminar for College Teachers. “Religious Diversity and the Common Good,” funded
by the National Endowment for the Humanities, 2004-2005, 2006-2007, 2008-2009.
“Gambling and the American Moral Landscape,” funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, 20062008.
“Strengthening Democracy through Religious Understanding,” funded by the Carnegie Corporation of
New York, 2004-2006.
“Church, State and Society Seminar,” funded by the US Department of State, 2003.
“Church, State and Society Seminar,” funded by the US Department of State, 2002.
Real Religion: How Americans actually live their faith, Smith Richardson Foundation, 2001-2004.
Moral and Normative Aspects of School Choice, Smith Richardson Foundation, 2000-2002.
Economic Freedom, Religious Freedom and Social Justice, The Templeton Foundation, 2000-2001.
Director, Summer Seminar for College Teachers, National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer
1999.
Alan Wolfe
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“Virtue and Vice in American Life,” Institute for Civil Society, 1997
“Virtue and Vice in American Life,” The Lilly Endowment, 1998-99.
“Freedom and Economic Justice,” The Templeton Foundation, 1998-99. With Glenn C. Loury.
“Middle Class Morality,” Summer Seminar for College Teachers, National Endowment for the
Humanities, 1996.
“The New American Social Contract,” Grant from The Twentieth Century Fund, 1993-1994. Declined.
“Middle Class Morality,” Grant from the Russell Sage Foundation, 1994.
Director, Summer Seminar for College Teachers, Summer 1994, National Endowment for the
Humanities.
ASA/NSF Small Grant Program, Problems of the Discipline Committee: “Neo-Institutionalism in
Sociology: The Relevance of the Third Generation.
EDITORIAL:
Series Editor, “Contemporary Political Issues,” University of Michigan Press, 2002 Series Editor, “Religion and Politics,” Rowan and Littlefield, 2004 Editorial Advisor, Commonwealth Magazine, 2000-.
Series Editor, “Morality and Society,” University of Chicago Press, 1991-.
Book Review Editor, The Responsive Community, 1993-95.
Contributing Editor, The Wilson Quarterly, 1993-.
Contributing Editor, The New Republic, 1993-.
Editorial Board, Race and Society, 1996-2002.
Editorial Board, Qualitative Sociology, 1992-2002.
Editorial Board, Social Research, 1990-95.
Book Review Editor, Tikkun, 1987-88.
Contributing editor, Contemporary Crisis, 1981-85.
Alan Wolfe
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Editorial Board, Sociological Theory, 1980-84.
Editorial Board, The Nation, 1978-88.
Contributing editor, Politics And Education, 1977-79.
Editorial Board, Politics And Society, 1970-75.
BOARDS:
Advisory Board member for In Character: A journal of everyday virtues
President’s Advisory Board, Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities
Advisory Board for Humanity in Action
Fellow, Family Institute, Duquesne University.
Academic Advisory Board, National Marriage Project, Rutgers University.
Academic Advisory Board, Civil Society Project, Harrisburg, PA.
Expert Witness, National Commission on Civic Renewal, 1997.
Advisor, Presidential State of the Union Address, 1995, 1999.
International Advisory Board, Center for European Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest.
International Advisory Board, Doctoral Program in the Political Economy of Welfare States, Roskilde
University, Denmark.
Board of Directors, East and Central European Project, New School for Social Research.
Academic Advisory Board, Institute for American Values, New York City.
Board, Political Economy of the Good Society, University of Maryland.
Final Selection Committee, National Humanities Center, 1996.
Final Selection Committee, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, 1998.
Lilly Endowment Seminar on Religion and Higher Education, 1997-2000.
Faculty Seminar on Public Life and the Renewal of Democracy, Harvard Divinity School.
Senior Fellow, World Policy Institute, New School University, New York, 2003 –
Alan Wolfe
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PROFESSIONAL DUTIES:
Boston College, Institute for Liberal Arts Seminar on Academia, Journalism and the Public, 2013-present.
Religious Studies Department Review, Stanford University, May 16, 2012
Chaired “Ways of Knowing and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition” seminar for Boston College’s
Catholic Intellectual Tradition, 2007-2009.
Chaired a task force of the American Political Science Association (APSA) on "Religion and Democracy
in the United States." 2006-2008.
Nominator, Humanist of the Year Award, New York Council on the Humanities, 1998, 1999.
Nominating Committee, Theory Section, American Sociological Association, 1992.
Ad Hoc Committee to Choose a Professor of General Sociology, Uppsala University, 1996.
Ad Hoc Committee to Choose a Professor of Economic Sociology, Stockholm University, 1997.
Ad Hoc Committee to Choose a Professor of General Sociology, Copenhagen University, 1998.
KEYNOTE ADDRESSES AND LECTURES:
Loyola University Maryland, Democracy and the Humanities Symposium, Opening Address:
“Humanistic Social Science: An Endangered Species?” September 25-26, 2015.
Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry, Dean’s Colloquium, “Why Libertarianism Isn’t
Liberal,” April 6, 2015.
Yale University, Yale Center for Faith and Culture Conference, "Theology of Joy as a Transformative
Movement," October 9-10, 2014.
University of Montana President’s Lecture Series, “Political Evil: What It Is and How to Combat It,” and
the Stan Kimmitt Lecture on Public Service, “Why Diaspora Is Good for the Jews,”
September 11, 2014.
Interfaith Education Fund, Austin, Texas, December 4-5, 2013.
Massachusetts Humanities Foundation, panelist for the foundation’s symposium, E Pluribus Paralysis:
Can We Make Our Democracy Work? Boston College, November 9, 2013.
Boston College, Secularization and the Jesuits Conference, “Secularization in The States,” June 14, 2013.
Alan Wolfe
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Amsterdam’s Trouw Magazine lecture, “Are Strong Believers a Threat to Democracy?” May 16, 2013.
Davidson College, “A Conversation with Alan Wolfe: Is religion a danger to democracy?,” March 19,
2013.
Aurora University, Celebrating Arts and Ideas Series 2012-2013, “Voices of Democracy,” January 30,
2013.
University of Texas, Austin. “Is America Governable?” University of Texas Law School Conference.
“The State of the Union” panel participant. January 24-26, 2013.
"Who's Afraid of American Religion?” Cornerstone Forum, Sherborn, November 4, 2012.
”Political Evil” – What Makes it Distinctive?” Ax:son Johnson Foundation, Roots of Violence,
Stockholm, Sweden, April 16-17, 2012.
“Michael Harrington and the American World of Letters” The Other America Then and Now Conference,
College of Holy Cross, March 22, 2012.
Panel participant, “The State and the Public Interest,” Solidarity Conference VII, “The Character of the
Public,” Vienna, March 9-11, 2012.
“American Religion,” U.S. Embassy, Bratislava, Slovakia, March 8, 2012.
Symposium on “The Role of Religion in the Public Sphere” Aspen Institute, February 22-25, 2012.
Forum on “Civility and American Democracy” at the Center for Civil Discourse, University of
Massachusetts, Boston, February 17, 2012.
“The American Cultural Understanding of Islam” at the International conference on The Mediterranean
Microcosm between the West and the Arab-Muslim World, Paris, November 3 – 5, 2011.
“Religion and Politics Colloquium” at The MacMillan Center Initiative on Religion, Politics, and Society,
Yale University, October 10, 2011
"The Challenges of Religion to Democracy" at the "Jewish Perspectives on Transformations in
Contemporary Europe" Decennial Conference, Uppsala University, Sweden, August 13 – 17,
2011
“Getting Serious about Political Evil” Winant Professor Seminar, June 1, 2011
“The Politics of Counter-Evil” Winant Professor Seminar, May 25, 2011
“The Many Seductions of Ethnic Cleansing” Winant Professor Seminar, May 18, 2011
Oxford European Reunion 2011, ‘Europe in the World,’ Paris, France, May 7, 2011.
Alan Wolfe
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“Mani or Machiavelli?: Idealism, Realism and the Problem of Political Evil,” Rothermere American
Institute, University of Oxford, Special Seminar Series, February 24, 2011
“Augustine’s Shadow: Do Ordinary People Commit Acts of Extraordinary Evil?” Rothermere American
Institute, University of Oxford, Special Seminar Series, February 17, 2011
“What is Political Evil?” Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, Special Seminar Series,
February 3, 2011
“The Case Against Dramatizing Genocide” Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford,
Inaugural Lecture, January 27, 2011
October 22, 2010, "Religion and Conflict: Alternative Visions," Arizona State University.
“Whose Afraid of American Religion?” September 21, 2010, Darien Lecture at Rutgers University.
March 20, 2010, Eastern Sociological Association, Boston, MA. Panel with Jeff Manza (NYU) and
Karen Hansen (Brandeis University).
April 24 2009, Roger Williams University, "Who's Afraid of American Religion?"
April 16, 2009, Brookings Institution, “The Future of Liberalism” with E. J. Dionne, Jr. and Ross
Douthat, Washington, DC.
March 26, 2009, “Religion and the State,” conference at Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic
Religions, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
March 3, 2009, “Globalization’s Challenge to Liberalism,” luncheon with commentator, David Callahan
from Demos, hosted by Progressive Books & World Policy Institute, New York.
February 26, 2009, Keynote Address “Faith in the Public Square,” Messiah College, Grantham,
Pennsylvania.
February 13, 2009, American Mosaic Project, University of Minnesota.
January 21, 2009, “Statute for Religious Freedom” lecture, University of Mary Washington,
Fredericksburg, VA.
December 10, 2008, Conference at the French Institute of International Relations, “The United States
after the Presidential Election,” Paris, France.
October 26, 2008, “Promised Land: Exodus and America” symposium, “The Ten Commandments in
America” panel with Noah Feldman and Jenna Weissman Joselit, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.
October 16, 2008, Glastonbury Abbey, "Who's Afraid of American Religion?" Hingham, MA.
October 12, 2008, “The Role of the Public Intellectual,” John F. Kennedy Library Forum with Gloria
Alan Wolfe
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Steinem and Professor Sean Wilentz (Princeton University) moderated by Richard Parker.
September 30, 2008, “Who’s Afraid of American Religion? Politics and Religion in the 2008 Elections,”
Union College, Schenectady, NY.
May 13, 2008, “The Future of Religion & Spirituality” Christus Futures Task Force II meeting, Boston,
MA
May 9, 2008, Conference at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Nature of Liberal Arts
April 23, 2008, “In Praise of Artifice,” University of California, San Diego
April 4, 2008, Featherman Humanities Lecture, “Who’s Afraid of American Religion?” University of
New England, Biddeford, ME
February 27, 2008, Voice of the Faithful: Impact and Prospects, Boston College
February 19, 2008, NPRs OnPoint at WBUR: Religious War, Religious Peace
February 11, 2008, Assessing the 2008 Super Primary, Boston College,
February 5, 2008, WGBH Greater Boston, Practicing Religion
November 10, 2007, Princeton University, New Jersey. “Mormonism and American Politics” conference.
Participated on the panel titled “Politics and Religious Identity.”
October 29, 2007, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. “Who’s Afraid of American
Religion?”
September 4 -7, 2007, IIP Speaker Program, US Department of State, London and Belfast, United
Kingdom. “Who’s Afraid of American Religion?”
July 2 – 4, 2007, Aspen, Colorado, Aspen Ideas Festival 2007. Participated on two panels on The
American Experience: “Religion and the Public Square” and “What Does America Stand for Today?”
June 1 – 2, 2007, Vienna, Austria Conference "Enlarging Solidarity." Participated on the panel titled
‘Jacek Kuron-Debate on Solidarity.’
April 13 – 14, 2007, Dublin Ireland, Boston College’s Irish Institute Alumni Reunion Conference.
April 5, 2007, Brown University, “Who’s Afraid of American Religion?”
April 4, 2007, SUNY College at Brockport, keynote speaker for the Alpha Kappa Delta Induction
Ceremony.
March 27, 2007, The Wolfson Center for National Affairs at The New School. Panel discussion on
“Conversations: The Democratic Government vs. The Democratic State.”
Alan Wolfe
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March 23, 2007, New Hampshire Humanities Council Conference on “Shifting Ground: Religion and
Civic Life” Manchester, NH. Keynote Address with Russell Johnson “What Does it Mean to be a Citizen
and a Person of Faith in America Today?”
March 13, 2007, The Yale Club of New York City, “Does American Democracy Work?”
March 6, 2007, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, DC. Book Forum
on “Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History.”
February 22, 2007, Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah. 2007 Tanner-McMurrin Lecture on the
History Philosophy of Religion.
February 16 – 18, 2007, London, England. Trajectories in World Christianity conference, “
February 7, 2007, Intelligence Squared: the U.S. forum for live debate, New York (an initiative of the
Rosenkranz Foundation), panel participant on “America is Too Damn Religious”.
January 19, 2007, Center for American Progress, Washington, DC.
December 18-21, 2006, The Hague, Netherlands. Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid
(Scientific Council for Government Policy) "Who's Afraid of American Religion?" as part of the lecture
series, Religion, Democracy and the Public Domain: Beyond Churches and Nation-States.
November 17, 2006, Louisville, Kentucky, Federation of State Humanities Council, The Walter Capps
Memorial Lecture, “Religion and the Common Good.”
October 26, 2006, Saginaw Valley State University, “Who’s Afraid of American Religion?”
September 29, 2006, Center for American Progress, Washington, DC, “Does American Democracy Still
Work?”
September 26, 2006, Brookings Institution, "Polarized by God? American Politics and the Religious
Divide."
September 20, 2006, Lebanon Valley College, “Who’s Afraid of American Religion?”
May 23, 2006, The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Faith Angle Conference, Key West, FL. “Is
There a Culture War?”
May 17-18, 2006, Shawnee State University, A Celebration of Scholarship, Keynote speaker,
“Reflections on a Faith-Based Presidency.”
April 17, 2006, Harvard University, The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Religion, Politics
and Public Life Faculty Seminar Series, “Religion and Politics in the United States and Europe.”
March 27, 2006, videoconference to the Australian Defence College, The Centre for Defence and
Alan Wolfe
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Strategic Studies, “Clash of Cultures: The Case of Fundamentalism Within.”
March 13-14, 2006, Brookings Institution/Hoover Institution, Authors Conference on Volume I: “Red and
Blue Nation?”
March 3, 2006, Harvard University, Alexis de Tocqueville Lecture on American Politics, “Democracy
and Christianity in America.”
March 3, 2006, Suffolk University, “Interfaith Relations in a Pluralistic World” panelist.
February 14, 2006, American Enterprise Institute, Panic Attack: The New Precautionary Culture and
Politics of Fear, “Can We Rediscover Our Purpose and Commitment to Innovation?”
February 10, 2006, Columbia University, Religion and Liberalism: A Conference on Faith and
Progressive Politics in America, panelist.
February 2-3, 2006, Florida State University, Institute on College Student Values Conference, Keynote
speaker.
January 26-27, 2006, American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE), Washington,
DC, US and World History Standards Meeting.
January 11, 2006, Massachusetts Bay District of Unitarian Universalist Ministers, “Who’s Afraid of
American Religion?”
French Institute of International Relations, “Politics in the United States,” Paris, December 15-17, 2005.
"Religion and Policy" conference sponsored by the Heinrich Boell Foundation of Germany's Green Party,
Berlin, December 15, 2005.
“Transatlantic cleavages,” Sciences Po, Paris, December 7-10, 2005.
“Evangelical-Jewish Relations,” sponsored by Temple University, held at the Jewish-Theological
Seminary, New York, November 30, 3005.
Reinhold Niebuhr Roundtable Discussion, Union Theological Seminary, November 18, 2005.
“Who’s Afraid of American Religion?” Rollins College, November 15, 2005.
Commentator for James Q. Wilson, University Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Harvard University,
November 2-4, 2005.
"Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States," American University of Beirut, in Lebanon,
October 20, 2005.
“Religion as Unifier and Divider,” Holy Spirit University, Kaslik, Lebanon, October 18 – 22, 2005.
Alan Wolfe
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“Manuscript Review of James Patterson’s From Watergate to Bush v. Gore,” University of Virginia,
Miller Center, May 13, 2005.
“Return to Greatness,” Demos, New York, May 9, 2005.
“Return to Greatness, How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What It Needs to Do to Recover It,”
Politics and Prose, Washington DC, April 20, 2005
“Return to Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What It Needs to Do to Recover It,”
Carnegie Council, April 19, 2005
“Return to Greatness,” Commonwealth School in Boston – April 14, 2005
“The Evangelical Mind: Open or Closed?” Gordon College, February 16, 2005.
“American Greatness,” The January Series, Calvin College, January 6, 2005.
Interview. “L’Amérique ne veut pas d’une théocratie chrétienne.”L’Expansion, numero 691, November
2004:144-149.
Princeton University. Spencer Trask Lectures. November 9 – “America's Two Visions: The Good and the
Great”; November 10 – “How Conservatives Came to Think Small”; November 11 – “The Liberal Retreat
from Ambition.”
Sacred Heart University. “Transformation of American Religion.” November 8th, 2004.
Brandeis University. A Joint Conference of the American Jewish Committee and Brandeis University
Commemorating the 350th Anniversary of American Jewish Life. “Jews and American Culture” October
18, 2004.
Mount St. Mary’s University. Lecture presentation sponsored by the Office of Intercultural Development
and A Vision of Vocation. “Faith and Diversity” September 22, 2005
Jay Phillips Center for Jewish-Christian Learning, St. John’s University – University of St. Thomas, St.
Paul, Minnesota. Rabbi Max A. Shapiro Lecture. “Transformation of Religion in America and the
Practice of Faith,” September 21, 2004.
Interview. “The Struggle to be Christians in America.” Cutting Edge, Vol. 8 no.2, Summer, 2004. 4-21.
University of Manitoba, Knight Distinguished Lecture. “Public Intellectuals in Contentious Times,” June
2, 2004.
Interview. “American’s Evangelicals” Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, New York, April 30, 2004.
University of Vermont, John Dewey Honor’s Program, “Transformation of American Religion,” March
30-31st, 2004.
Alan Wolfe
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University of Connecticut, Stamford, “Religious Diversity,” March 15th, 2004.
Interview. “The Taming of Religion in America.” Homiletics, March – April, 2004. 9-73.
Hendrix College, Hendrix-Lilly Vocations Initiative, “Faith and Public Service,” March 11 – 12, 2004.
Conversations with the President, Boston College Development Program, “Religion and American Public
Life,” Naples, FL, March 6, 2004.
Mary Baker Eddy Library, “American Individualism & Spirituality – Transforming Religion,
Transforming Jesus,” Boston, MA, February 26, 2004.
Temple Emanu-El, The Rabbi Levi A. Olan Lecture, “Transformation of American Religion: How We
Actually Practice our Faith,” Dallas, TX, February 24, 2004.
Eastern Sociological Society, “Academics as Public Intellectual: Historic Moments and Autobiography,”
New York, NY, February 20, 2004.
Catholic University of America, “The Transformation of American Religion” Washington, DC, February
11, 2004.
University of Richmond, “American Greatness,” Richmond, VA, February 3-4, 2004.
Westmont University, Capps Center, “Transformation of American Religion,” Los Angeles, CA,
December 12, 2003.
University of California, Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life, “Transformation of American
Religion,” Santa Barbara, CA December 12, 2003.
New School University, panel discussion on “Religion in American Life,” New York, NY, November 19,
2003.
Rutgers University, Sociology Department, “Transformation of American Religion,” Newark, NJ,
November 19, 2003.
Democratic Leadership Council, “…And Republican Vulnerabilities,” Atlanta, GA, October 17-18, 2003.
Ball State University, Small Cities Conference, Keynote address “Transformation of American Religion,
September 13, 2003.
Wabash College, “Transformation of American Religion,” September 11, 2003.
Griffith University, Australia, “Religion in America: Is the United States Exceptional? Keynote address
for Fulbright 2003 Symposium “Are we all Americans now?” July 14, 2003.
Videoconference with Deakin University in Australia, Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies,
“Influence on Protestantism on American Policy,” May 13, 2003
Alan Wolfe
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Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Discussant on “A Declaration of Interdependence: Why
America Should Join the World,” May 12, 2003
De Pauw University, Mellon Symposium on “Political Education and the Modern University,” April 8,
2003
Stonehill College, “Morality and the War in Iraq,”April 3, 2003
Wellesley Interfaith Speech, Wellesley College, “The Transformation of American Religion,” March 30,
2003
Georgetown University, “Americanism Contested,” March 28, 2003
NOW with Bill Moyers, New York, March 21, 2003
Independent Sector, Washington, DC, Keynote speaker, “Politics, Religion, and the Public Interest,”
March 6, 2003
“Anti-Catholicism: The last Acceptable Prejudice?, co-sponsored with Fordham University and
Commonweal Magazine, New York, NY, May 24, 2002.
"Moral Freedom," Templeton Lecture, Grove City College, Grove City, PA, April 24, 2002
Center for the Study of the Presidency, Washington, DC April 12, 2002
Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, April 9-10, 2002,
Closing remarks made at "Shifting into Neutral? Emerging Perspectives on the Separation of Church and
State," Boston College Law School, Law Symposium, April 5, 2002
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, April 2, 2002 “Real
Religion: How Americans Actually Practice Their Faith.”
University of Massachusetts, Lowell MA, March 26, 2002
"Moral Freedom, Evangelicals and Higher Education," Exploring Moral Formation Conference, Wheaton
College, Wheaton, IL, March 20-21, 2002
Hebrew College, Newton, MA, March 13, 2002
Miami University, Oxford, OH, March 5-6, 2002
February 2, 2002 Annual Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities Meeting in Washington, DC Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Public Square Keynote address.
Association of American Colleges and Universities, Pre-conference symposium, Liberal Learning and the
Challenge of Uncommon Values, Washington, DC, January 23, 2002
Alan Wolfe
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Fulbright, Copenhagen, Denmark, November 5-11, 2001 Danish-American Fulbright Commission's 50th
Anniversary "Writing about America."
Harvard University, Department of Government, October 26, 2001 "What happens when religion comes
to the modern welfare state?"
Dickinson College, October 24, 2001
Religious Newswriter's Association, September 21, 2001 "Faith in Public Policy."
American Political Science Association, August 28 - September 2, 2001 Annual meeting
American Sociological Association, August 18-19, 2001 Annual Meeting recipient of the Award for
Public Understanding of Sociology
Smith Richardson Foundation in New York City, June 19, 2001 discussing Moral Freedom
Brookings Institute, June 12, 2001 - Panel discussion with Peggy Steinfields and Terry Teachout
moderated by E.J. Dionne discussing Moral Freedom: The search for virtue in a world of choice
Woodrow Wilson Center, May 24, 2001
Kalamazoo College, May 10-11, 2001 - 2001 Fetzer Lecture discussing Moral Freedom
Commonweal Colloquium, "The Challenge of Moral Freedom," April 22, 2001
Brookings Institute, April 10, 2001
Villanova University, March 28, 2001
“Changing Values in the United States,” French Institute for International Relations, Paris, December
2000.
Boston Jewish Film Festival, November 2000.
Anti-Defamation League, National Commission Meeting, Plaza Hotel, November 2000.
Gannett Lecture, “Citizenship in an Age of Moral Freedom,” Rochester Institute of Technology, October
2000.
“For Profit vs. Not For Profit Colleges,” Audrey Cohen College, June 2000.
Public Voices for America’s Future, U. S. House of Representatives, April 2000.
“Faith and Public Policy,” Pepperdine University, March 2000.
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“Health Values Project,” The King’s Fund, London, January 2000.
The William F. Podlich Distinguished Visitors Program, Claremont McKenna College, Fall 1999.
Ruttenberg Seminar, New York University, December 1999.
Twentieth Birthday of Kennedy Library, October 1999.
“Higher Learning and Catholic Traditions,” Erasmus Institute, University of Notre Dame, October 1999.
“Have Americans Lost Their Virtue?,” Pruitt Memorial Symposium, Baylor University, October 1999.
“Looking for America,” Angelo State University, Texas, October 1999.
“Ten Years After: 1989,” Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria, June 1999.
“American Values,” Democratic Caucus. U. S. House of Representatives, April 1999.
University Scholars Address, University of Dayton, March 1999.
Keynote speaker, Bell South Kickoff Conference, University of Florida College of Education, 1998.
“One Nation, After All,” National Urban League, May 1998.
“One Nation, After All,” National Conference on Community and Justice, April 1998.
Minnesota Sociological Association, September 1997.
Conference on Private Action and the Public Good, Center for the Study of Philanthropy, Indiana
University, November 1993.
Thirtieth Annual Convocation, John F. Kennedy Institute of North American Studies, The Free University
of Berlin, May 1993.
First International Meeting of NGOs and the U.N. Systems Agencies, Rio di Janeiro, August 1991.
Scandinavian Sociological Association, Aalborg, Denmark, August 1989.
Sixth Annual Scandinavian Congress for Political and Social Researchers, Oslo, Norway, April 1989.
UNIVERSITY EVALUATION
Evaluator, James Madison College, Michigan State University, April 1994.
Evaluator, Sociology Department, Colorado College, Fall 1994.
Alan Wolfe
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TEACHING INTERESTS:
Political and Social Theory; Religion and Liberal Democracy; The Welfare State; American Society and
Politics; Social Criticism; Public Intellectuals in American Culture.
EDUCATION:
Public Schools, City of Philadelphia.
1963: Temple University, B.S.
1964-65: Vanderbilt University, Graduate work in Political Science.
1967: University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D. in Political Science.