Dennis C. Rasmussen
Professor, Political Science
Degree
Ph.D., Duke University, 2005
Specialties
Political theory, history of political thought
Courses
Political
Theory
Capitalism,
For and Against
Foundations
of American Political Thought
Biography
Dennis
C. Rasmussen is a political theorist whose research focuses primarily on the
Enlightenment and on the virtues and shortcomings of liberal democracy and
market capitalism. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University in 2005 and his
B.A. from Michigan State University’s James Madison College in 2000, and he has
also held positions at Tufts University, the University of Houston, Brown
University, and Bowdoin College. His books include The Infidel
and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped
Modern Thought (Princeton University Press, 2017), The
Pragmatic Enlightenment: Recovering the Liberalism of Hume, Smith,
Montesquieu, and Voltaire (Cambridge University Press, 2014),
and The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society: Adam Smith’s
Response to Rousseau (Penn State University Press, 2008). He is
currently working on a book on the disillusionment of America’s founders.