Investigating 20th-Century Connections to Partisan Politics and Modern Conservatism with Richard Aldous 

Air Dates: February 5-11, 2024 

It’s easy to look at American politics, now, and find individuals for whom loyalty to party or an individual leader is the only thing that matters. But Richard Aldous tells us of another time when service to the nation was the highest service in public life. 

Aldous is the Eugene Meyer Professor of British history and Culture at Bard College and specializes in twentieth-century history. He earned his Ph.D., from the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow in the Royal Historical Society. He has authored and edited 11 books, including “Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian,” “Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship,” “Macmillan, Eisenhower and the Cold War,” “The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli” and biographies of Malcolm Sargent and Tony Ryan. Aldous also taught for 15 years at University College Dublin, where he was chair of the History Department. He continues to write regularly for publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and The American Interest, where he is a contributing editor.  

On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Aldous discusses his newest book, “The Dillon Era: Douglas Dillon in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Administrations” recounting Dillon’s contributions to three administrations and its relevance in a time of partisan politics. He says Dillon’s ability to work across party lines is unique to politicians of the past and is far less likely to be replicated today. Aldous describes Dillon’s politics as “something that is implicit in that conservative vision where the past, the present and the future have to work together.” He continues, stating, “this is not a period without its faults, but it is definitely something where we can look back to a time when politics and conservatism was done differently.” 

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