Voices of Freedom

An Interview with James Hankins and Allen Guelzo, Authors of The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition
As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is a moment to reflect not only on the founding of the United States, but on the much longer story that made the founding possible. The American experiment did not begin in 1776. Rather, the Founders drew on ideas about law, liberty, faith, and human dignity that reach back centuries, if not millennia.
Our guests on this episode of Voices of Freedom have spent their careers tracing that story. James Hankins and Allen Guelzo met as boys, and they have been talking about the Western tradition ever since. Those conversations — and their decades of scholarly work spanning the full arc of the Western experience — have now produced The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, a two-volume history published by Encounter Books that runs more than two thousand pages, with hundreds of maps, works of art, and primary sources set alongside the narrative.
James Hankins wrote Volume I, which begins with the ancient Greeks and continues through Rome, Christendom, and the Renaissance. He is Professor of Humanities at the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida, taught at Harvard for forty years, and is the founding editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library and the author of the prize-winning Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy. Jim is a 2026 Bradley Prize recipient.
Allen Guelzo wrote Volume II, which picks up in 1500 and follows the West through the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the age of revolutions, and into our own century. Also a Professor of Humanities at the Hamilton School, he is one of the country's leading historians of Lincoln and the Civil War, a three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize, and the author of Gettysburg: The Last Invasion and Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment. Allen is a 2018 Bradley Prize recipient.
Topics Discussed on this Episode:
How a boyhood friendship grew into a two-volume history of the Western tradition

Where the golden thread first emerges in the ancient world, how it carries forward through the Renaissance and into the modern age — and where it came closest to breaking

America's place in the arc of Western civilization as the country marks 250 years

The character a free society requires, and whether it can still be taught

What gives Jim and Allen hope that the Western inheritance will be carried forward by the next generation of students and readers

An Interview with Adam Josefczyk, Co-founder and President, Forge Leadership Network
Many young conservatives have genuine conviction and real potential — but without personal formation, a trusted network, and professional mentoring, they never find their footing in the public arena. Forge Leadership Network was created to change that.
Our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom is Adam Josefczyk, co-founder and President of Forge Leadership Network. Since founding Forge in 2014, Adam has built a pathway for emerging Christian conservative leaders through formation, friendship, and preparation for influence in politics, culture, and business. Through its Leadership Summit, Mentorship Academy, and a growing national network of Forge Fellows, Forge is turning a sense of calling into enduring impact in the public arena. Before Forge, Adam worked in public policy in Ohio and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Dayton.
Topics Discussed on this Episode:
•          What Adam observed working in Ohio policy and politics — and the gap it revealed for young conservatives entering the public arena
•          Why formation, friendship, and preparation must work together, and how the Forge Summit, Academy, and Network deliver all three
•          How Forge measures success — and why placement in roles of real responsibility is the right standard
•          The relationship between faith and political engagement, and the principles that guide how Forge navigates that tension
•          What gives Adam hope about the next generation, where Forge is headed, and what it can offer young people who want to make a difference

An Interview with Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Scholar, Rabbi, and Senior Fellow, Tikvah
At a time when faith is increasingly viewed as something to be kept out of public life, one of America's most compelling Jewish scholars and public intellectuals is making the opposite case — that religious liberty is not merely tolerated in America but is essential to its founding character and constitutional order.
Our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom is Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York — the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States — and Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. A Senior Fellow at Tikvah and a scholar who has lectured at the Vatican and at Christian institutions across America and Europe, Rabbi Soloveichik brings both rigorous scholarship and the natural authority of a congregational rabbi to the most urgent questions about faith, freedom, and the American experiment. His most recent book, Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship, explores the qualities of moral courage and virtue that great leaders have drawn from faith across centuries.
Rabbi Soloveichik is also a 2026 Bradley Prize winner.
Topics Discussed on this Episode:
Rabbi Soloveichik's path from a distinguished rabbinic family to Princeton, the synagogue, and the public square

What America's oldest Jewish congregation reveals about the relationship between faith and the American Founding

The resurgence of antisemitism in the West and what it tells us about the fragility of freedom

The case for religious liberty as essential — not incidental — to America's constitutional order

What it means to receive a Bradley Prize

An Interview with Senator Phil Gramm, Economist, Legislator, and Author
From the classroom to the halls of Congress, to international banking, and the public square, few Americans have made a more sustained and consequential case for economic freedom than our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom.
Senator Phil Gramm taught economics at Texas A&M University for twelve years before serving in the United States Congress for more than two decades — first as a Representative from Texas, then as United States Senator. His legislative record includes the Gramm-Latta Budget, which reduced federal spending and paved the way for the Reagan tax cut; the Gramm-Rudman Act, which placed the first binding constraints on federal spending; and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which modernized the nation's banking, insurance, and securities laws. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of The Myth of American Inequality and The Triumph of Economic Freedom. Senator Gramm is a 2026 Bradley Prize winner.
Topics Discussed on this Episode:
Senator Gramm's path from the classroom to Congress

The legislative legacy of the Gramm-Latta Budget, Gramm-Rudman Act, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

Whether Congress can recover a commitment to fiscal discipline

How the country arrived at today's polarization over free enterprise and markets

The case for economic freedom and what's at stake for the next generation

An Interview with Chris Krug, Publisher, The Center Square
One of the keys to a healthy American democracy is an informed citizenry. Yet the decline of local news has left millions of Americans without reliable coverage of the institutions, policies, and elected officials that shape their daily lives. Statehouse reporting in particular has withered — leaving citizens in the dark about the decisions being made in their state capitals.
Our guest today has dedicated his career to changing that. He leads one of the most ambitious efforts in the country to fill the local news void with high-quality, government accountability journalism that puts taxpayers first.
Our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom is Chris Krug, Publisher of The Center Square, a nonprofit news organization launched in 2019 to provide statehouse and statewide coverage across the United States. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience in the media industry — from sports journalist to major market editor and publisher — Chris has built The Center Square into one of the country's most expansive sources of state and local government reporting.
Topics Discussed on this Episode:
Chris's path from sports journalism to leading one of the country's most ambitious local news organizations

What it means for communities and democracy when local news disappears

How The Center Square's taxpayer-first sensibility shapes its coverage

Earning reader trust and what keeping that trust means to The Center Square

How The Center Square navigates the pressures of AI, social media, and the struggles of legacy news organizations

What gives Chris optimism about the future of local journalism