How Republics Die, and How to Keep Them Alive:
From Rome to America

Hoover Fellow Barry Strauss

Join us for a discussion with renowned historian Barry Strauss as he traces how the Roman Republic slid from self-government into one-man rule, and what that history means for America today.

Rome didn't fall overnight. Its republic wore away over generations, through political violence, an assault on citizenship, broken norms, concentrated power, and leaders who put ambition ahead of the constitution. Strauss will look at the warning signs Rome missed, what Americans should watch for in our own time, and, most importantly, what citizens can do to keep a republic alive.

Friend and colleague of the esteemed Victor Davis Hanson, Strauss is the Corliss Page Dean Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Bowmar Professor of Humanistic Studies Emeritus at Cornell University. He has written ten history books, several of them bestsellers, translated into twenty languages. His latest, Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire, appeared on five "best books of 2025" lists. He received the 2025 Bradley Prize and the 2026 Hattendorf Prize from the U.S. Naval War College. Publishers Weekly writes, "No one presents the military history of the ancient world with greater insight and panache than Strauss."