THE GOLDEN THREAD AND THE DEFENSE OF THE WEST
A few days ago, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation bestowed one of its storied Bradley Prizes on James Hankins, a sometime professor of history at Harvard University, now at the Hamilton Center at the University of Florida, and co-author of The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition.
(Actually, Hankins is the sole author of Volume I of The Golden Thread, which tells the story of the Western tradition from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC through the Renaissance.
Volume II, which picks up the story with the Reformation, is by the historian Allen Guelzo.)
This is the moment when I note for the record that, being the publisher of these magnificent books at Encounter Books, I have what is called in the trade an “interest.” But don’t take my word for the adjective “magnificent.”
The reception of these books has been nothing short of ecstatic. Perhaps the most searching review is by Spencer Klavan and appears in the current number of The Claremont Review of Books.
Listening to Jim Hankins’s remarks at the Bradley event prompts me to reprise a few thoughts about what we are up to with The Golden Thread.
The phrase names not only these two books but also a larger project that Encounter is undertaking with several partners to change the conversation about—well, I was going to say “about education.”
But really, it is about that vibrant thing that the soporific word “education” designates, namely, opening the treasure chest of the past in order to confront and ultimately to emulate greatness.
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In foreign policy, timing, leverage, and national interest must guide the strategy of engagement with rising powers.

[This Monday’s Archive was originally in TTP on October 29, 2016, the eve of the election of Trump 45. It is a ‘nutshell history’ of how the Democrat Party lost its patriotism. It’s important for you to know how the Dems got there, with AAG Todd Blanche confirming yesterday (5/17) that 

In late April, Australia signed a deal to buy eleven new frigates from Japan.
Few predicted that blaming Israel and the Jews who support it would flare up in the early 21st century—and in America of all places, where there are nearly as many Jews as there are in Israel.

They built the trap. Now they’re standing in it. A Virginia court blocked the Democrat’s redistricting map. The left screams “activist judge.” They built this weapon – now it’s pointed at them.




