COLLEGE 102 and the Hoover Institution host America at 250: Classical Heritage, Western Civilization, the Future on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, from 6:00-8:00 PM PT.
As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, questions about its intellectual foundations and future direction remain central to civic life. What traditions shaped the American experiment in its first two and a half centuries, and which ideas will continue to guide it in the years ahead?
This special panel, presented in collaboration with Stanford’s College 102 program, the Hoover Institution, and the Department of History, examines the classical and 18th-century Enlightenment influences that have shaped American political and civic thought, as well as other traditions. Speakers will explore how ideas drawn from antiquity and Western civilization informed the nation’s founding, how the legacy of slavery complicates that inheritance, and how differing interpretations of the past continue to shape debates about America’s future.
After introductory remarks by Stephen Kotkin, the program will feature presentations by Barry Strauss, Caroline Winterer, Dan Edelstein, and Anne Twitty. Jonathan Gienapp will moderate the discussion, offer comments, and engage the audience, all with the aim of fostering a rigorous and civic exchange thatmodels how to manage open inquiry and disagreement.
FEATURING
Jonathan Gienapp is an associate professor of history and law at Stanford University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, specializing in the constitutional, political, and intellectual history of the early United States. Through award-winning scholarship and public-facing engagements, he offers critical historical perspectives on constitutional interpretation and the foundational theories that continue to shape modern legal debates.
Barry Strauss is a distinguished military historian and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow who has authored numerous bestselling books on ancient Greece and Rome during his decades-long career at Cornell University. Recently awarded the 2025 Bradley Prize, his extensive scholarship includes the upcoming book Jews vs. Rome and memberships in prestigious academic societies.
Caroline Winterer is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University, specializing in the history of ideas, political thought, and science in America before 1900. She has authored six books, including her latest work, How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution in America (2024), and teaches courses on the American Enlightenment and cultural history.
Dan Edelstein is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French and a courtesy professor of history and political science at Stanford University, where he also serves as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and directs the university’s first-year general education requirement. A scholar of European intellectual history, he has authored or edited eleven books, including his most recent work, The Revolution to Come (2025).
Anne Twitty is a faculty member at Stanford University and a prominent public historian of the nineteenth-century United States who has led major initiatives to contextualize the legacy of slavery and Confederate memory on university campuses. Beyond her research, she serves on the editorial board of the Journal of American Constitutional History and the board of the Freedom Suits Memorial Foundation.
INTRODUCTION BY
Stephen Kotkin the Kleinheinz Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution where he leads the Hoover History Lab and is also a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), where he taught for 33 years.
