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

The Western Tradition from Antiquity to 1500

Where do the threads that form the Western tradition originate, and how were they woven together over the two and a half millennia before 1500? What are the sources of our modern ideas about science, freedom, equality, law, good government, and virtue? These are the questions explored in The Golden Thread, Volume I: The Ancient World and Christendom, written by James Hankins.

The story begins with the seminal culture of the classical Greeks and moves through the Hellenization of the east following the conquests of Alexander the Great. Hankins then narrates the rise and dominance of Rome and the fusion of Greco-Roman and Judea-Christian cultures in the Christian empire of the fourth century AD. The volume follows the history of Christendom from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, charts its centuries-long rivalry with the Islamic world, and culminates in the emergence of European civilization in the Middle Age and Renaissance. 

Volume I Examines how the foundations were laid for the West's political and economic dominance in the modern era, illuminating the deep roots of the ideas, arts, and institutions that continue to shape our world.

The Golden Thread is a two-volume history of the Western tradition. Volume I is authored by James Hankins; Volume II, covering the modern and contemporary West, is authored by Allen C. Guelzo.

The Golden Thread series features:

Written by two of the most distinguished historians of our time.
The Golden Thread speaks in coherent, singular voices. Each volume is authored by an eminent individual writing in narrative form and interpretive tone, and animated by the conviction that knowledge across disciplines is best pursued through stories that are rich in insight, humanity, and meaning.

A Cultural Inheritance
Nearly 1000 curated images—sculptures, paintings, and artifacts—from the vaults of the West’s finest cultural institutions.
Readers are not merely told what happened, but shown what was created—page after page alive with the rich architecture, sculpture, music, and painting that gave visible form to the West’s most enduring aspirations.

Living Voices from the Distant Past
Features close to 200 foundational primary source texts drawn from every era.
Woven through the chapters are the voices that once commanded nations, composed poems and hymns, and drafted creeds. These are not summaries or paraphrases—they are the words themselves, as they were first spoken, sung, and inscribed.

Visual Histories of the World
Enriched by over 150 bespoke maps, each a visual key to the unfolding story of the West.
The Golden Thread does more than locate events—it reconstructs the shifting boundaries of thought, faith, empire, and imagination that defined how men and women once pictured the world and their place within it.