APPLETON, WIS. — Against a backdrop of continuing turmoil in Iran and Afghanistan, an emboldened Syria and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, historian John Lewis attempts to answer the question “what went wrong” since the September 11, 2001 attacks on America in an address at Lawrence University.
Lewis, assistant professor of history at Ashland University, presents “9/11 Five Years Later: Why we are Losing the War” Wednesday, Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. In the auditorium of Lawrence’s Wriston Art Center. The event is free and open to the public.
While President Bush maintains America is vigorously pursuing its enemies, Lewis will argue in his address that the failure to identify the ideology of those enemies–Islamic totalitarianism–has made it impossible to confront them. Drawing upon the lessons of America’s victory over Japan in World War II, Lewis believes for the the United States to secure victory, it must reject assumptions about the nature of a “just war” and demand the removal, “by force, Islamic Totalitarianism — State Islam– from the face of the earth.”
A faculty member of the Ashland University department of history and political science since 2001, Lewis earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Rhode Island, a Ph.D. in classics from the University of Cambridge and an Anthem Fellowship for Objectivist Scholarship. He has taught at the University of London, and was a visiting scholar at Rice University and at Bowling Green State University.
He is the author of the 2006 book “Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens,” and is completing the book, “Nothing Less Than Victory: Military Offense and the Lessons of History.”
Lewis’ appearance is sponsored by Lawrence University Students of Objectivism, an organization dedicated to the study and spread of the ideas of author and philosopher Ayn Rand.
