A. James Gregor - Democratic Liberalism and Teaching

Democratic Liberalism and Teaching

Gregor continued to define himself as committed to the values and convictions of democratic liberalism, consistently arguing that the American brand of democracy has proven the most effective system of government and the most likely to endure.

In the 1960s, Gregor held numerous workshops and lectures to convince policymakers and academics of the exigencies of U.S. support for securing victory over North Vietnam. Gregor has continued to demonstrate an interest in maintaining anti-Communist and U.S. interests in Southeast Asia. During the 1970s and 1980s, in what he understood to be U.S. interests, Gregor served as an uncompensated advisor to Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos.

He has also conducted inquiries into American security issues in Asia particularly in reference to Sino-American relations in the form of his 1986 book The China Connection: U.S. Policy and the People's Republic of China and his 1987 follow-up, Arming the Dragon: U.S. Security Ties with the People's Republic of China. In 1989 he wrote In the Shadow of Giants: The Major Powers and the Security of Southeast Asia. As result of his work, Gregor was named to the Oppenheimer Chair of Warfighting Strategy 1996–1997 at the Marine Corps University in Quantico. In recent years he has translated a major political essay written by the Italian Fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile into English together with a commentary on Gentile's political thought. Until his recent retirement in 2009 he taught a popular series of political science courses on revolutionary change, Marxism, and Fascism at UC Berkeley. As of 2011, Gregor is working on his new book on Marxism in the Making of Modern China.