Laura Shannon Prize Winner
Laura Shannon Prize Winner
The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought
by Eric Nelson
2012 Award in Humanities
Jury Statement
An electrifying, bold analysis, Eric Nelson’s The Hebrew Republic is a transformative work in political and intellectual history that makes a significant contribution to European studies. Nelson argues persuasively that a European engagement with Jewish political thought was central to the development of modern notions of republican government, the redistribution of wealth, and religious tolerance. Using rabbinical commentaries and examining republican thought, Nelson’s careful scholarship offers a wealth of new and counter-intuitive insights. This is a watershed in presenting the history of political thought and is a very important book with which scholars will engage and argue for decades to come.
Lecture: “‘The Lord Alone Shall be King of America’: European Hebraism and the Republican Turn of 1776”
Final Jury
Caryl Emerson
A. Watson Armour III University Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Princeton University
Don Howard
Professor of Philosophy
Director of the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values
University of Notre Dame
Suzanne L. Marchand
Professor of History
Louisiana State University
Mark W. Roche
Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of German Language and Literature
University of Notre Dame
Paul Woodruff
Professor of Philosophy
Inaugural Dean of the School of Undergraduate Studies
University of Texas at Austin