Grove City College Professor of History Dr. Gillis J. Harp’s study of the influence of Comtean positivism on the Gilded Age and Progressive era in the United States has recently been translated into French.
Harp, who also serves as chair of the College’s Department of History, first published “Positivist Republic: Auguste Comte and the Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865–1920” in 1994 under the auspices of the The Pennsylvania State University Press. The new translation is being published by L’Harmattan, one of the largest publishing houses in France.
Harp’s book considers the influence of French philosopher Auguste Comte on American political thought in the latter third of the 19th century and provides “a fuller, more complex picture of the fabric of American political thought in this key transitional period and enhances our understanding of the emergence of modern, corporate liberalism by the start of the twentieth century,” according to the publisher.