THE INITIATIVE
The Golden Thread Initiative is a celebration of the centuries-long traditions of the West, from the Greeks at Marathon to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the societies and cultures it has inspired around the world.
The Mission
Honoring the great traditions of the West and of America.
The first volume of The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition traces the great arc of civilizational achievement over the centuries, from Greece and Rome to the appearance of Christianity and the fresh scaffolding it created for wisdom and art in the Middle Ages and Renaissance that complemented the classical inheritance. The second volume follows the course of reform and revitalization in the Reformation and Enlightenment, the successes and failures of commerce and empire-building around the world, and the contests and conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries.
With The Golden Thread and Land of Hope, Encounter Books takes the lead in bringing a new generation into living contact with the great issues, great art, and great ideas that have made the Western tradition and shaped the American experience all around us.
Every generation needs to re-examine the past, both to admire anew its accomplishments and culture, and to learn from its mistakes and miscalculations.
The TextBooks
The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, by eminent historians Allen C. Guelzo and James Hankins, will offer an eloquent and refreshing overview of the trajectory of the West—its unique customs of art and literature, law, philosophy, science, faith, and tolerance that have bound the people of its tradition together—from the ancient Greeks and Romans to medieval Christendom and Europe, and finally the modern world and America.
Professor Wilfred M. McClay’s Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story is a groundbreaking approach to telling our national story to the modern audience of young Americans. Encompassing the broad arc of American history, the ultimate takeaway from this text is that America, despite occasional deviations from her founding ideals, is the crowning achievement of the Western project, and the last remaining hope for its future.
THE ACTION PLAn
To make The Golden Thread Initiative accessible to as many educators and students as possible, Encounter Books will:
- Partner with district, independent, charter, and religious schools to provide textbooks and comprehensive curricular scaffolding for a wide variety of classroom settings.
- Work with networks of educators, advocates, and public servants to develop state and local adoption campaigns tailored to the needs of local school districts.
- Inaugurate pilot programs with wide distribution of free textbooks and curricular materials.
- Price books competitively such that they are affordable and widely available to students and parents from all backgrounds.
support
“A civilization is a space, so to speak, in which people may breathe. It creates a public forum, a city square, in which they may do something other than tremble and labor for simple survival. It allows people to erect monuments of art, literature, and thought alongside the every-day necessity to work, to produce, to exchange. It is a necessity, because the human spirit cannot be captured simply by the way we earn bread or avoid massacre; there is a natural yearning after order, after beauty, after truth. Civilization celebrates that yearning, encourages it, and provides the means by which it may flourish, and the means by which it can be protected from harm.”
“As a people who aspire to civility—to the goodness, truth, and beauty that our tradition, like a river, bears down us from the civilizations of the past—we, too, have a duty to study and cherish what we have been given by our ancestors, and to preserve it for our children.”
James Hankins & Allen C. Guelzo
get involved
We are building a network of allies in America’s educational communities.
As part of the Initiative, Encounter Books will be hosting a wide variety of public events, conferences, and summits that will underscore the task of academic renewal.
If you are an educator, advocate, parent, or anyone else who would like to join and support us, please contact us at goldenthread@encounterbooks.com.
