The Golden Thread aspires to revitalize the study of the Western tradition, and to restore that tradition as a lived source of common identity and inspiration. This is no small mission, and we cannot do it alone. We invite you to join us by reading this Substack and participating actively in its community.
For roughly two and a half millennia, from the ancient Greeks to medieval Christianity to the Enlightenment and beyond, Western civilizations have been a source of intellectual, artistic, and spiritual nourishment. And that is how they are approached on this platform: as a common currency to be traded widely, a shared medium for cultural creation, and a lingua franca to facilitate interpersonal communication and personal fulfilment.
This newsletter also has a very practical intention: to reanimate the teaching of Western Civilization in schools and universities, reestablishing the subject as a core course in secondary and higher education. There is also an emphasis on the United States, which we see as a prime inheritor of the precious Western legacy. We do not focus narrowly on history per se, but rather trace the intersections between past times, places, and events on the one hand, and achievements in music, art, literature, and religion on the other.
Some of what we write draws on The Golden Thread, our coauthored survey of the Western tradition published in 2025 by Encounter Books. As part of our attempt to make it a standard textbook, we regularly provide resources for teachers in addition to other extras, including Q&A sessions, special interviews, and exclusive content, which are available to paid subscribers.
And now, what we are not: a couple of old fogies indulging in complaint, intent on recreating a world that never was. Nor do we have any intention of excluding anyone. Our writings and the material we provide are meant to reignite broad interest in the West, drawing in people with little more than an inkling of its wealth and even those who are not yet aware of its riches. Last but not least, we are not interested only in what is old, but also in what is bright, new, and attractive about the Western tradition. We care about yesterday because we view it as the foundation of a better tomorrow.
Join us as we follow the golden thread of the Western tradition. And please help spread the word.
The Authors
Allen C. Guelzo and James Hankins have been discussing the Western tradition since middle school, when they first met and became fast friends. The Golden Thread – both this Substack and the eponymous book – is the fruit of a lifetime of conversation and fellowship.
Allen Carl Guelzo was the Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar at Princeton University (2019-2025) and is now Professor of Humanities in the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. He is also a Non-Residential Senior Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. He holds an MA and PhD in history from the University of Pennsylvania, and has been the Grace F. Kea Professor of American History at Eastern University (1991-2004) and the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College (2004-19). He is the author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999), Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (2004), Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America (2008), Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (2012), and Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, which spent eight weeks on the New York Times best-seller list in 2013. Most recently, he has published Robert E. Lee: A Life (2021), Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy and the American Experiment (Knopf) and Voices from Gettysburg: Letters, Papers and Memoirs from the Civil War’s Greatest Battle (Kensington/Penguin Random House).
Guelzo is a three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor, and has been featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (2008), NPR’s Morning Edition with Steve Inskeep (2024), and Brian Lamb’s “Booknotes.” In 2010, he was nominated for a Grammy Award along with David Straithern and Richard Dreyfuss for their production of the entirety of The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (BBC Audio). He lives in Gainesville, Florida, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Debra. They have three children – Jerusha Mast, Alexandra Fanucci, and Maj. Jonathan Guelzo (USA) – and eight grandchildren.
James Hankins is a historian of the Italian Renaissance and a powerful voice in the movement to reform American education. After teaching at Harvard for 40 years, he is now Professor of Humanities in the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. He was the founder and General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library for 25 years, during which time the series published over 100 volumes. He is the author of over 20 books, most recently Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy (2019) and Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy: The Virtuous Republic of Francesco Patrizi of Siena (2023). A winner of the Serena Medal of the British Academy in Italian History and the Marraro Prize, he has been elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (2014) and a Member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters (2024). His most recent book, The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, co-authored with Allen C. Guelzo, was published in 2025 by Encounter Books.
Since publishing Virtue Politics in 2019, Hankins has been increasingly committed to writing for a wider public on topics of current interest. His focus is on educational policy, both at the K-12 level and in higher education, but he has also written on subjects as diverse as immigration, health care policy, and the impact of AI technology on the quest for human excellence. In addition, he has written a number of reviews of art museum shows as well as historical essays on subjects relevant to current concerns. His public-facing writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Law & Liberty, The Claremont Review of Books, The New Criterion, First Things, The American Mind, and Public Discourse.
His public-facing writings and a full bibliography are available at jameshankins.org.
