Princeton historian to give public talk on ‘2008 election as end of Reagan era’ at university March 19

COLUMBIA, SC – march 13, 2009 – Princeton University historian Dr. Sean Wilentz will give a public talk March 19 at the University of South Carolina on the recent presidential election marking the end of an era of conservatism.

The university’s annual John G. Sproat Lecture in American political history will take place at 7 p.m. in the Campus Room of Capstone House. Wilentz’ talk, “Conservatism Exhausted: The Election of 2008 and the End of the Reagan Era,” is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the university’s department of history and Institute for Southern Studies.

Wilentz, the Ruth and Jay Lapidas professor of American History at Princeton, recently published “The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008,” a reconsideration of U.S. politics since the Watergate affair. He is a contributing editor to “The New Republic” and “Newsweek.” In 2005, Wilentz published the book “The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln,” which won the Bancroft Prize in History. Wilentz was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

The lecture honors the legacy of American historian John G. “Jack” Sproat who served nine years, 1974 – 83, as chairman of the history department and later as senior fellow in the Institute for Southern Studies, where he was general editor of the “Southern Classic Series.” Sproat also served on the boards of the Columbia Museum of Art and the Historic Columbia Foundation.

For more information, contact Dr. Lacy Ford Jr. at 803-777-7774 or visit the Web site: http://www.cas.sc.edu/hist/.