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PORTSIDE CULTURE

NEW CONSERVATISM, CULTURE WARS AND THE WESTERN TRADITION  
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Paul Kelly
June 3, 2026
LSE Review of Books
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_ This is a conservative defense of the Western Tradition against its
progressive critics, the book a well-researched and engaging – if
unmistakably political – narrative history of Western civilization.
_

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_The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition_Volume I: _The
Ancient World and Christendom_Volume II: _The Modern and Contemporary
West_James HankinsEncounter BooksISBN: 9781641773997 (Vol.1)ISBN:
9781641774017 (Vol.2)

The role of history in culture wars

Is it possible to write a definitive history of Western Civilisation
that is also a positive celebration of its achievements and value?
_The Golden Thread _is a significant new two-volume book on the
subject that is both massive (it spans over 2,000 pages and weighs six
kilograms) and beautifully produced, containing hundreds of portraits,
colour prints, maps and illustrations. Wisely, the authors Allen C.
Guelzo and James Hankins do not claim that it is the only such
history, but they nevertheless have a clear vision of what they wish
to achieve in this impressive venture. While striving to be
authoritative, it is also a profoundly political book on multiple
levels, all of which make it of interest to academics and its intended
student and popular audience.

The woke agenda is supposed to have captured elite higher education
institutions (such as Harvard University), according to right-wing
commentators and campaigners like Christopher Rufo and the late
Charlie Kirk.

Hankins is a distinguished scholar and author of a prize-winning work
on Renaissance political thought, formerly of Harvard and now a
visiting Professor at the Hamilton School at the University of
Florida. Guelzo is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute which is
leading the rethinking of American Conservatism as a site of cultural
politics. Its reputation goes back to Straussian scholars such as
Harry V. Jaffa [[link removed]], and more recently
it has been associated with the cultural and populist turn, championed
by the Trump administration, against “woke” or progressive
liberalism. Central to that project has been the defence of Western
Civilisation against the progressive turn which challenges its values
and achievements. The woke agenda is supposed to have captured elite
higher education institutions (such as Harvard University
[[link removed]]),
according to right-wing commentators and campaigners like Christopher
Rufo [[link removed]] and the late
Charlie Kirk. [[link removed]]

Defending the study of Western Civilisation

Hankins and Guelzo weigh into this debate to defend the concept and
pedagogical value of studying Western Civilisation. For them, this
tradition is composed of the interweaving of Ancient Greek culture,
Hellenised Roman culture and the Christianised Greco-Roman culture of
the high Middle Ages. The first volume sets out this tradition through
an account of the art, philosophy, political ideas and literature of
two millennia from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE to the beginning
of the Reformation in 1517. Of course, the story goes back further to
include the Homeric tradition of Greek literature, which no such
history could exclude.

This is not just a history of political ideas in the traditional Leo
Strauss sense
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but more so a list of great books from Greece to the present with a
contextual narrative of development followed by one of decline and
decadence which for conservatives are the characteristics of
modernity. As such, it is a story of the philosophical and theological
sources of our political world and the challenges they currently face.
It is interesting that the point of departure in the Greek world is
the defeat of Persia at Marathon: a civilisational contest that is
supposed to have opened the peculiarly western alternative of liberty
and political self-government, especially in the context of the US war
in the Persian Gulf.

For Guelzo and Hankins, alternative histories have their place, but
are a danger when they displace the study of Western Civilisation in
the academy or perpetuate a critical climate that undermines the
achievements of the West

The second volume begins with the birth of the modern nation state
following the Reformation and concludes with the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991 and the final confrontation with another emerging
civilisational confrontation with Islamism represented by Al-Qaeda and
most especially the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The story of Western
Civilisation is bookended by confrontation with Persia or Iran – and
consciously opts for Samuel Huntington’s _Clash of Civilisations_
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(2002) model of contemporary Global politics as a renewed period of
civilisation conflict over Francis Fukuyama’s _The End of History
and the Last Man_
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(1992) which was supposed to be the story of 1991 and the triumph of
the US and liberal democracy over the USSR and communism.

 

Guelzo and Hankins celebrate and defend Western Civilisation against
Peter Frankopan’s displacement of it in his influential _The Silk
Roads_ [[link removed]]_
_(2015), a global history which looks beyond the west. Frankopan
argues that Western Civilisation is constituted by the engagement and
impact of more ancient civilisational cultures such as Persia or
China. For Guelzo and Hankins, these alternative histories have their
place, but are a danger when they displace the study of Western
Civilisation in the academy or perpetuate a critical climate that
undermines the achievements of the West as an object of enquiry and
especially as a political project.

Conservatism from Burke to Vance

The authors set out this conservative agenda in a manifesto style
introduction and foreground it throughout the two volumes. They cite
Edmund Burke [[link removed]] (1729-1797),
the first explicitly conservative political theorist, as an exemplar
of the type of conservatism the books support. They call for a return
to a Burkean ethos in face of the “woke” progressivism currently
rupturing modernity with its ideal of modernism and the principle of
permanent progress that seeks to undermine and relinquish the
traditional values that underpin their view of the modern west.

Their civilisational story challeng[es] the increasingly dominant
voice of inward-looking Christian Nationalism […] celebrating many
of the features of classical liberal constitutional politics that the
Christian Nationalists want to turn their backs on.

This overt political dimension to the narrative links the celebration
of Western Civilisation to the attacks of Secretary of State Marco
Rubio
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and Vice-President J.D. Vance
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a decadent Europe that is failing to defend itself from immigration
and cultural dilution. Guelzo and Hankins’ history chimes with
strands of new Conservatism, such as post-liberalism
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of Political-Catholicism. More subversively, their civilisational
story contributes to the debate within new conservativism by
challenging the increasingly dominant voice of inward-looking
Christian Nationalism
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– which focuses on isolationism and patriarchal paternalist politics
– and thus by celebrating many of the features of classical liberal
constitutional politics that the Christian Nationalists want to turn
their backs on. The book makes a partisan case in this struggle for a
new conservatism.

The political purpose behind this otherwise traditional, even
old-fashioned book is what gives it much of its interest to
contemporary scholars of politics. The book is well written and
researched, and in its own terms, no more controversial than any other
such sweeping book although it downplays the dark side of the story
such as slavery and colonialism. There are plenty of other narrative
histories of the West as a geographic space, a cultural unit and
philosophical and theological civilisation (like Josephine Quinn’s
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and Tom Holland’s
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for instance), but _The Golden Thread_ is worth reading if you have
plenty of time (and very strong wrists!).

_NOTE: This review gives the views of the author and not the position
of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics
and Political Science._

_Paul Kelly is Professor of Political Theory in the Department of
Government at LSE. His most recent books include Conflict, War and
Revolution, LSE Press, 2022, and Against Post-liberalism: Why Faith,
Family and Flag is a Dead end for the Left, Polity Books, 2025._

 

* Historiography
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* Ancient History
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* modern history
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* conservatism
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