Brief Bio

Nancy Reeves Dreux Professor of Political Science, Emeritus
Visiting Professor, ASU’s School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership 2019
Editor of American Political Thought 2013-2019
B.A. Cornell University
M.A. University of Chicago
Ph.D. University of Chicago

Michael P. Zuckert is the Nancy R. Dreux Professor of Political Science, Emeritus. He has published extensively in both Political Theory and Constitutional Studies. His books include Natural Rights and the New Republicanism, the Natural Rights RepublicLaunching Liberalism, and (with Catherine Zuckert) The Truth About Leo Strauss and Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy, in addition to many articles. He has also edited The Spirit of Religion & the Spirit of Liberty and (with Derek Webb) The Antifederal Writings of the Melancton Smith Circle. He is completing Natural rights and the New Constitutionalism, a study of American constitutionalism in a theoretical context.

Professor Zuckert taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Political Philosophy and Theory, American Political Thought, American Constitutional Law, American Constitutional History, Constitutional Theory, and Philosophy of Law. His advising specialties were graduate programs in political science.

He co-authored and co-produced a public radio series, Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson: A Nine-Part Drama for the RadioHe was also a senior scholar for Liberty!  (1997), a six-hour public television series on the American Revolution, and served as senior advisor on the PBS series on Benjamin Franklin (2002) and Alexander Hamilton (2007).

Zuckert has received grants from NEH, the Woodrow Wilson Center, Earhart Foundation, and NSF, and has taught at Carleton College, Cornell University, Claremont Men’s College, Fordham University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Chicago, and Arizona State University.

Zuckert is the founding editor of American Political Thought, A Journal of Ideas, Institutions, and Culture. Published by The University of Chicago Press in association with the Jack Miller Center and the Notre Dame Program in Constitutional Studies. Bridging the gap between historical, empirical, and theoretical research, American Political Thought (APT) is the only journal dedicated exclusively to the study of American political thought.

The culmination of years of work on Abraham Lincoln’s political thought, Michael P. Zuckert’s
 A Nation So Conceived argues for a coherent center to Lincoln’s political ideology, a core idea that unifies his thought and thus illuminates his deeds as a political actor. That core idea is captured in the term “democratic sovereignty.” Zuckert provides invaluable guidance to understanding both Lincoln and the politics of the United States between 1845 and Lincoln’s death in 1865 by focusing on roughly a dozen speeches that Lincoln made during his career.