Northumbria University's Professor Tony Badger to Deliver Lecture on "Gridlock in Washington and the US Constitution"

Northumbria’s newest appointment in history and American Studies, the esteemed Professor Tony Badger, will be delivering a lecture on “Gridlock in Washington and the US Constitution.”  Badger, the former Paul Mellon Professor of American History, Cambridge University, will be joining other well known scholars on Thursday November 20 at the Legatum Institute in London for an event titled “Magna Carta—800 Years On.”

The Legatum Institute summarizes the commemoration as follows:

In anticipation of the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, the Legatum Institute is pleased to host a roundtable seminar exploring why some constitutions take root and flourish, while others wither and die. Different sessions will examine how constitutional thought and practice, although operating in circumstances that vary widely, seek to secure the freedom and dignity of the individual.

Questions posed, discussed, and debated include:

Is a constitution worth the paper it's written on? ‘The Constitution of Freedom: Why some constitutions succeed—while others fail' is a half-day conference on the international history of constitutions. Speakers include Vernon Bogdanor, Research Professor, Institute for Contemporary British History at King’s College.

The Legatum Institute is:

a charitable public policy think-tank whose mission is to help people lead more prosperous lives. The Institute defines prosperity as wellbeing, not just wealth. Its Legatum Prosperity Index™ assesses a wide range of indicators including education, health, social capital, entrepreneurship and personal freedom to rank 142 countries. Published annually, the Index has become an essential tool for governments around the world.

Northumbria Welcomes Professor Tony Badger

Brian Ward

This week, we welcome Professor Tony Badger to the American Studies and History programmes at Northumbria. This semester he will be teaching with me on the Level 5 African American Freedom Struggle since 1945 module and doing some guest lectures for From Sea to Shining Sea. It’s hard to imagine that a mere 24 years ago, when I got my first full-time teaching job “across the road,” it was me joining Tony to teach on his year-long Special Subject on Martin Luther King.

Professor Tony Badger

In the intervening years, while Tony has been slumming it as Paul Mellon Professor of American History and Master of Clare College at The University of Cambridge, he has cemented his place as one of the most important historians of the US to emerge since World War Two. His books include Prosperity Road: The New Deal, Tobacco, and North Carolina (1980); The New Deal: The Depression Years 1933-1940 (1990); New Deal/New South: The Anthony J Badger Reader (2007) and FDR: The First Hundred Days (2008) – not to mention a highly regarded, nay indispensable, edited collection on The Making of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, co-edited with yours truly. He is currently working on a biography of southern white liberal Al Gore, Sr. (yep, the fiddle-playing father of former vice president Al Gore, Jr) and completing a book on US history between the two World Wars.

Obviously, it gives me great personal pleasure to welcome Tony back to the North East after his years in the wilderness. But I think his decision to join us also stands as testimony to the ambition and strength of American Studies and history at Northumbria right now. Colleagues throughout the Humanities, and students at all levels will enjoy his company and benefit greatly from his vast teaching, administrative, research, and fund-raising experience. He gets his round in, too.

Brian Ward is Northumbria University's first Professor in American Studies. Brian's teaching and research focuses on the American South, the African American Experience (particularly the civil rights and black power movements), popular music, the mass media, America in the 1920s and 1960s, and various aspects of Anglo-American cultural relations.