From eugenics to segregation, the Pulitzer Prize winner says America's 'darker impulses' run deep.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and University of Rochester alumnus Steven Hahn '73 has spent years chronicling the political experiences of ordinary people, particularly those at the margins, such as white farmers and enslaved people. In his latest book, Illiberal America: A History (W. W. Norton, 2025), he traces the enduring themes of exclusion, repression, and antidemocratic politics in the United States across centuries.
"Illiberalism is not a backlash," Hahn insists. "Backlash is one of the most misleading words in the American political vocabulary, because it suggests that a political phenomenon only expresses ignorance and rage and nothing more than that." Instead, he argues, illiberalism is a coherent political culture with "deep historical roots."
What is "illiberalism"?
Hahn starts with a definition: "Illiberalism is not just one thing; it's a collection of ideas and practices," he explains. A fundamental characteristic of illiberalism is the belief in people's inequality (as opposed to equality)-whether it's social, political, or civil-and the belief in inherent or assigned hierarchies of race, gender, or nationality, he argues. Other hallmarks include a desire for cultural or religious homogeneity, the "marking of internal and external enemies," accepting violence as a means of attaining and maintaining power, and privileging the "will of the community" over the rule of law.
Examples of illiberal moments in US history
Rather than spotlight only the most notorious examples, Hahn points to episodes often celebrated as triumphs of liberalism. Here are some examples:
In the 1830s, as voting rights expanded for white men, free Black people were disfranchised and Native Americans, Mormons, Catholics, and abolitionists faced expulsion. "Abraham Lincoln worried about mob rule," Hahn notes, describing the murder of an abolitionist in Illinois and a lynching in St. Louis.
The Progressive Era (1900-1920), commonly referred to as the birth of modern liberalism, also saw "an almost across-the-board embrace of eugenics" along with widespread Jim Crow racism. Segregation, Hahn notes, appealed to progressives as "a modern way" of dealing with racial conflict: "Instead of watching a tsunami of lynchings, you could choreograph racial interactions." He points out that disfranchising people politically-through literacy tests, residency requirements, and new registration laws-all of which were intended to make it difficult for certain groups of people to vote. Such efforts targeted not only Black people but also European immigrants.
Meanwhile, eugenics, the pseudoscientific attempt to improve the human race through selective breeding (and to counter the reproduction of those who were seen as defective) was very much in vogue. Birth control activist and sex educator Margaret Sanger was a proponent, as were Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson-the latter (as New Jersey governor) even signed the bill for mandatory sterilizations. "Eugenics imagined marrying science and the state to create a better social order," says Hahn. "But that meant literally trying to breed a better society."
The 1960s saw important civil rights victories, yet the political far right was "reconstituting itself," Hahn says. Figures like segregationist George Wallace, a former Alabama governor, honed a language of grievance "about federal overreach" and "state rights," winning significant support outside the South. Additionally, he says, the decade ushered in a "war on crime" that foreshadowed later mass incarceration.
What drives illiberal politics?
Racial conflict is central but it's not the only reason for the rise of broad illiberal sentiment. "It's a confluence of things," Hahn says, noting that demographic instability certainly plays a role-knowing that by the middle of the 21st century white people will become a minority in the United States. Additionally, economic anxiety can stoke fear.
"Large sections of the American middle class and working class have not seen their real incomes rise since the 1970s," Hahn acknowledges. But he points out that illiberal ideas also flourished when the American economy was expanding as it did in the 1950s and 60s.
Ultimately, he says illiberal beliefs predate the founding of America. "What I'm talking about really precedes the emergence of liberalism," Hahn emphasizes. "These ideas have their origins in a feudal and early modern world."
"Illiberalism is always close to the surface," he cautions. Not cyclical but a constant, ready to erupt when crises occur and political opportunists fan its flames. His perspective directly challenges the notion of an enduring American liberal tradition. Instead, Hahn argues that this liberal tradition was largely "an invention of the 1940s and 1950s"-based on a societal Cold War consensus. He hopes readers will recognize that illiberalism "has political coherence" and "popular appeal," shaping the nation from its earliest days. His message is sobering-illiberalism is not an aberration but a defining feature of the American story.
URochester set the course
Hahn's own political awakening began at the University of Rochester, where he majored in history after becoming involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement. "I was arrested at least once," he recalls of his student years.
Originally, he'd been interested in pursuing an engineering degree. But by the time he got to Rochester, "it was pretty clear that astronautical engineering was not going to work for me," he recalls with a chuckle.
Influential URochester history professors, among them Christopher Lasch, Eugene Genovese, and Herbert Gutman nurtured his intellectual curiosity. In 2004, Hahn won both the Pulitzer Prize in History and the Bancroft Prize for his book A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Harvard University Press, 2005).
After stints at the University of Delaware; the University of California, San Diego; Northwestern University; and the University of Pennsylvania, Hahn is now a history professor at New York University, where he continues to probe some of the country's most uncomfortable truths.
"There's no doubt in my mind," he says, "if I hadn't gone to Rochester, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now."
