Rick Perlstein, Marcus Witcher to Speak for Huntingdon Stallworth Lecture

Montgomery, Ala.—Award-winning political writer Eric S. (Rick) Perlstein and Huntingdon assistant professor of history Dr. Marcus Witcher will present the 2022 Huntingdon College Stallworth Lectureship in the Liberal Arts, Monday, October 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the College’s Ligon Chapel, Flowers Hall. They will speak on the topic, “Ronald Reagan and the Evolution of Conservatism, 1964–2022.” Following presentations by each lecturer, Huntingdon President J. Cameron West will moderate a question-and-answer session with the speakers. Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.

A book-signing event will be held at 4:00 p.m. at the College’s bookstore, the Scarlet & Grey Shop, located in the Phyllis and Gene Stanaland House at 1140 East Fairview Avenue.

“In conceiving this lecture topic, we wanted to present patterns of conservative thought as they have evolved through the past six decades,” said Huntingdon President J. Cameron West. “Dr. Marcus Witcher is a rising scholar and authority on the topic, and we are fortunate that he is one of our own. Rick Perlstein has demonstrated his expertise in detailed research and beautifully written books chronicling conservative thought. We are very pleased to present these two important and educated scholars together, and we are looking forward to an engaging and insightful event.”

Politico has described Mr. Perlstein as “a chronicler extraordinaire of modern conservatism.” He is the author of “Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus,” which won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history and was among the best books of the year lists for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. His book, “Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America,” was selected as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by more than a dozen publications. “The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan” (2014) was a New York Times bestseller and among 100 New York Times Notable Books.

His fourth volume, “Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976–1980” (2020), won the 2021 Hillman Prize for Journalism and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020. About Reaganland, Publishers Weekly wrote in their starred review, “”Perlstein masterfully connects deep currents of social change and ideology to prosaic politics, which he conveys in elegant prose studded with vivid character sketches and colorful electoral set-pieces. … The result is an insightful and entertaining analysis of a watershed era in American politics.”

Marcus M. Witcher joined the Huntingdon faculty in 2020. His first book, “Getting Right with Reagan: The Struggle for True Conservatism, 1980-2016,” was published by the University Press of Kansas in 2019. Dr. Witcher is also the co-editor of the three-volume “Public Choice Analyses of Economic History” (2018, 2018, 2019) and is the co-editor of “Conversations on Conservatism: Speeches from the Philadelphia Society” (2021). His latest book, co-authored with Dr. Rachel Ferguson, is “Black Liberation through the Marketplace: Hope, Heartbreak, and the Promise of America” (2022, Emancipation Books).

Dr. Witcher is a fellow of the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Alabama. His opinion pieces and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, National Review, Reason Magazine, Modern Age, and Discourse Magazine, as well as several scholarly journals. He has presented extensively on conservatism.

Usually offered annually, this is the first public Stallworth Lecture held at Huntingdon since the beginning of the pandemic. The Stallworth Lectureship in the Liberal Arts brings a speaker of note to campus to discuss issues in the public interest.

Huntingdon College, founded in 1854, continues a legacy of faith, wisdom, and service through a liberal arts academic tradition grounded in the Judeo-Christian heritage of the United Methodist Church.

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