Scope and Content Note
The papers of Robert Alexander Nisbet (1913-1996) span the years 1949-1994 with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1953-1990. The collection almost exclusively concerns Nisbet's books on the history and philosophy of social and political thought. It is organized in two groupings: a Books File and Miscellany.
The Books File includes material relating to twenty books written or edited by Nisbet and it is arranged alphabetically by title. It includes correspondence with editors and readers, contracts with publishers, copies of reviews, promotional material, and research material. There are no drafts of the books or other preliminary or supplementary documents concerning creation of the text except for an early outline of Quest for Community and a fragment in the Twilight of Authority file.
The correspondence and reviews in the Books File reflect the debate surrounding Nisbet's ideas. Nisbet paid close attention to the nature of community and to distinctions between state and society. Influenced by Alexis de Tocqueville, Nisbet also theorized about the future of democracy by studying the American experience. Correspondents who wrote to Nisbet about his books, especially the first, Quest for Community, include James Luther Adams, Daniel Bell, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Hans Kohn, Russell Kirk, Irving Kristol, Folke Leander, Seymour Martin Lipset, Reinhold Niebuhr, David Morris Potter, Philip Rieff, David Riesman, and Arthur M. Schlesinger (1917- ).
The Miscellany contains a letter appointing Nisbet as the Albert Schweitzer professor emeritus in the humanities at Columbia University and a letter inviting him to address the Jowett Society of the University of Oxford in Great Britain.