Gary Hart spoke about his book, The Republic of Conscious, at Politics & Prose on Monday, July 20, 2015.

Hart, Colorado senator from 1975 to 1987 and currently the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland, is both a political progressive and a self-described “political…fundamentalist.” In his latest work of political theory, the author of The Courage of Our Convictions and other books on the goals and practice of politics looks at the founders’ conceptions of the ideal republic. Finding that today’s political institutions increasingly miss the mark their forefathers set, Hart assesses how Congress, the military, the CIA, and other bodies can return to first principles.