Dr. Claes Ryn was named the recipient of APL’s first Irving Babbitt Award. Ryn is a founding member of APL and author of several books including A Common Human Ground, America the Virtuous, Will, Imagination and Reason, and Democracy and the Ethical Life. He is founding editor of the academic journal Humanitas and founding director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship. An authority on the history of political theory and humane politics, Ryn has been listed among the most influential political theorists in the world. In 2000, he delivered the Distinguished Foreign Scholar Lectures at Beijing University, later collected and published as a book, Unity Through Diversity (in Chinese translation). As a long time professor at the Catholic University of America, he has mentored countless graduate and undergraduate students (including present and past officers and board members of APL).

Ryn received the award and delivered the Thursday evening dinner talk at APL’s annual conference on June 2, 2022.