The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, Volume I: The Ancient World and Christendom

by James Hankins

The Golden A History of the Western Tradition, by historians Allen C. Guelzo and James Hankins, will offer a truthful and fair-minded overview of the trajectory of the West—the complex system of customs, practices, and beliefs that has bound our society together—from the ancient Greeks and Romans to medieval Christendom and Europe, and finally the modern world and America.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Religion, Nonfiction, European History, Christianity, World History

1308 pages, Hardcover

Published August 26, 2025

About the author

James Hankins is an American intellectual historian specializing in the Italian Renaissance. He is the General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library and the Associate Editor of the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum. He is a professor in the History Department of Harvard University. In Spring 2018, he is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.
In 2012 he was honored with the Paul Oskar Kristeller Lifetime Achievement Award of the Renaissance Society of America.

Reviews

[Peter Tillman]

WSJ review: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/book...
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
“We have seen spread through our schools and institutions,” the authors write in their bracing introduction, “a malicious form of humility indistinguishable from self-hatred. This is a humility that humiliates, that seeks to blind Westerners to their magnificent traditions and to rub their noses, like misbehaving dogs, in their worst offenses.” ...

With graceful language and a splendid array of maps and photographs, the book makes plain how the operating assumptions of the West—equality under the law and the dignity of all persons, for example—so suffuse the air around us that we may forget that these truths are self-evident only to those within our cultural tradition. Had history unfolded otherwise, we might never have come to think as we do today. "

[Catherine Mathis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous - a resource now and for the grandchildren.

[Todd N · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are into history books bigger than your head, this is the book for you. Now I’m starting the second and final book in the series.

[Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am very grateful to have this two volume set. Volume I is simply an amazing history of the western tradition starting with Ancient Greece to the Christian West of the Middle Ages. If I could choose only two history books for the rest of my life, it would be part I & II of this set. It is written by two historians who appreciate the Western tradition and respectfully draw out all the threads which went into its making, including the contribution of Greece, Rome and Christianity. I should also mention how beautifully formatted and illustrated this volume is.