Dr. Wilfred M. McClay

Wilfred M. McClay is the Victor Davis Hanson Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization at Hillsdale College. He has served as the director of the Center for the History of Liberty.

Dr. McClay’s 1994 book, The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, won the Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians for the best book on American intellectual history. Among his other books are The Student’s Guide to U.S. History, Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America, Figures in the Carpet: Finding the Human Person in the American Past, and, with Ted V. McAllister, Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity, and Public Life in Modern America.

He served for 11 years on the National Council on the Humanities, and he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Academy of Education. He is a graduate of St. John’s College (Annapolis) and received his Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University.

Speaker’s Bureau

March 28th, 2013 | “The Strange Persistence of Guilt in a Post-Religious World: How it Affects our Public Life and What We Can Do About It” an Evening Conversation in Washington, DC with Bill McClay

Selected Publications and Scholarly Work

• Figures in the Carpet: Finding the Human Person in the American Past (2007)

• Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America (2003)

• A Student’s Guide to U.S. History (2000)

• The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America (1994)

SaveSave