In October, 1976, Professor Carroll Quigley delivered the first series of Oscar Iden Lectures entitled "Public Authority and the State in the Western Tradition: A Thousand Years of Growth, 976-1976." The lecture series was an occasion to re-gather around Professor Quigley who had retired from the School of Foreign Service the previous spring after forty years of teaching. The audience was composed chiefly of Professor Quigley's colleagues and former students who were grateful for the chance to be informed once again by his brilliance and eloquence.

About a month after the final lecture, Professor Quigley died suddenly. The lectures which he had intended to prepare for publication had only been partially edited by him. In order to bring his final lectures and tour d'horizon to print, we asked his former teaching assistant, Helen Veit, to prepare them. She has assembled the manuscript which is published here, taking care to be faithful to both Professor Quigley's style and to the nature of the occasion itself. Accordingly, the printed lectures are as true and direct a translation and reflection of the lecture series as it has been possible to produce.

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