Robert Alexander Nisbet (September 30, 1913. Los Angeles - September 9, 1996, Washington D.C.) was an American conservative sociologist.

Life

Nisbet obtained a Ph.D. in sociology in 1939 from Berkeley, where he studied under Frederick J. Teggart. After serving in the US Army during the War, where he fought in the European theater, Nisbet founded the Department of Sociology at Berkeley, and was briefly Chairman. Nisbet left an embroiled Berkeley in 1953 to become a dean at the University of California, Riverside, and later a Vice-Chancellor. Nisbet remained in the University of California system until 1972, when he left for the University of Arizona at Tucson. Soon thereafter, he was appointed to the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Chair at Columbia.

After retiring from Columbia in 1978, Nisbet continued his scholarly work for eight years at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. In 1988, President Reagan asked him to deliver the Jefferson Lecture in Humanities, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Nisbet was a very rare instance of a first rate mid-20th century sociologist who was also a conservative. His intellectual kin include Willmoore Kendall, Russell Kirk, Kenneth Minogue, Michael Oakeshott, Edward Shils, and Richard M. Weaver.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute published an intellectual biography of Robert Nisbet by Brad Lowell Stone.

Books by Nisbet

• 1953. The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom
• 1966. The Sociological Tradition
• 1968. Tradition and Revolt: Historical and Sociological Essays
• 1969. Social Change and History: Aspects of the Western Theory of Development
• 1970. The Social Bond: An Introduction to the Study of Society
• 1971. The Degradation of the Academic Dogma: The University in America, 1945-1970
• 1976. Sociology as an Art Form
• 1973. The Social Philosophers: Community and Conflict in Western Thought
• 1974. The Sociology of Emile Durkheim
• 1975. The Twilight of Authority
• 1980. History of the Idea of Progress
• 1983. Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary
• 1986. The Making of Modern Society
• 1986. Conservatism: Dream and Reality
• 1988. Roosevelt and Stalin: The Failed Courtship
• 1988. The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America
• 1992. Teachers and Scholars: A Memoir of Berkeley in Depression and War

Articles by Robert Nisbet

• The Nemesis of Authority. The Intercollegiate Review (Winter-Spring, 1972). .
• Conservatives and Libertarians: Uneasy Cousins. Modern Age (Winter 1980). .
• Roosevelt and Stalin (I). Modern Age (Spring 1986). .
• Roosevelt and Stalin (II). Modern Age (Summer/Fall 1986). .
• Still Questing. The Intercollegiate Review (Fall 1993). .

Articles about Robert Nisbet

• "Robert Alexander Nisbet" by Robert G. Perrin.
• "A True Sociologist: Robert Nisbet" by Brad Lowell Stone.
• "Robert Nisbet: Conservative Sociologist" by Gary North.
• "Robert Nisbet on Conservatism" by Gary North.
• "The Under-Appreciated Robert Nisbet" by Joseph Stromberg.