Public Writings

The Golden Thread (Substack), April 10, 2026 In the numerous interviews and podcasts I’ve done about The Golden Thread since the publication of vol. 1 last August, I’ve often been asked to explain how and why Christianity spread in the ancient world. I’m not sure why this subject comes up so often, unless my interviewers are trying to gauge just how Christian I am. I suspect some of them want to know whether I’m capable of a giving a secular, causal account in terms of socio

The Golden Thread (Substack), March, 25, 2026 By kind permission of Matthew Schmitz and Compact , the online magazine, we are able to offer our subscribers access to the full text of my article published on December 29, 2025, under the title “ Why I’m Leaving Harvard .” It was published hard on the heels of a viral article in the same outlet by Jacob Savage which had raised the issue of widespread institutional discrimination against white males, citing credible facts and fig

The Golden Thread (Substack), March 13, 2026 You don’t have to go very far into the extensive literature devoted to the “defense of the humanities” before you find the proud claim that the humanities teach “critical thinking.” What this ordinarily means, when it comes to reading books, is that students are taught a discipline of taking a text apart and seeing how it ticks, as though it were a machine. In more benign examples of criticism this might amount to rhetorical analys

Compact, December 29, 2025 Two weeks ago I gave my last lecture at Harvard, where I have been a history professor for forty years. My four decades of experience at one of the world’s leading universities have given me a unique vantage point to trace the replacement of Western history by global history. This change is part of the reason why the younger generation finds itself in a state of moral and intellectual disorientation. My decision to retire was not a sudden one. I am

The American Mind , August 15, 2025 Andrew Beck argues that America needs to revive the ideal of assimilation if our country is to...

Law and Liberty , August 11, 2025 The ongoing clash of the titans, President Trump and Elon Musk, is bringing into high relief the...

First Things , June 23, 2025 The research pursued these days in university humanities departments does not, as a rule, enjoy high esteem...

Law and Liberty , May 15, 2025 The first hundred days of the second Trump presidency have brought unprecedented challenges to the...

The American Mind , May 1, 2025 It’s not often that an opinion writer has the good fortune to elicit serious commentary from...

The Wall Street Journal , April 24, 2025 In recent reports about the Trump administration’s assault on Harvard, the statistic is often...

Compact , April 15, 2025 The Trump administration has been conducting a shock-and-awe campaign on official Washington that has astonished...

The American Mind , April 1, 2025 In his address to Congress this month, President Trump boasted—and justly so—of his administration’s...

Law and Liberty , February 25, 2025 The new administration has at last come to DC, and opportunities for genuine reform, it seems,...

Compact , January 15, 2025 During its annual meeting earlier this month, the American Historical Association, the oldest and most...

First Things , January 10, 2025 Recently I had an experience that I suppose is becoming increasingly common. The large, publicly traded...

Law and Liberty , November 21, 2024 The policies of the incoming administration with regard to the federal role in education, despite a...

Law and Liberty, November 8, 2024 A disturbing feature of the present moment in our public life is that both sides are accusing the other of being a threat to democracy. People who hold that the events of January 6, 2020, can be plausibly described as the worst insurrection since the Civil War identify the Republican candidate as the chief source of this threat. The wealthiest man in the world shouts back through his megaphone on “X” that the real threat to democracy comes

Law & Liberty, October 17, 2024 As Election Day approaches, I’ve been listening, though as little as possible, to our candidates for...

Law & Liberty, September 11, 2024 When confronted with confusing or appalling new events—and the last few years have surely had plenty of...

First Things , September 10, 2024 I have to admit to a tendency for my eyes to glaze over when people talk about a crisis in the...