EPISODE 43 - Carl Richard on the American Founders and the Presidents’ Classical and Christian Inheritance

Josh Bowman talks with Dr. Carl Richard, Professor of History at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. Dr. Richard has spent decades recovering the impact of the ancient Greeks and Romans on the American Founders and on American history generally. He has also turned to the influence of the Bible and Christianity on America’s founding, and now to the history of the Presidency.

We begin by talking about the classics, including Cicero, before turning to his more recent books on the Bible’s impact, including his newest volume, So Help Us God: American Presidents and the Bible (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025). https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/so-help-us-god-9798881806330/

Carl’s Books:

The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment (Harvard, 1994)
Twelve Greeks and Romans Who Changed the World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)
The Battle for the American Mind: A Brief History of a Nation's Thought (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)
Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008)
The Golden Age of the Classics in America: Greece, Rome, and the Antebellum United States (Harvard, 2009)
Why We're All Romans: The Roman Contribution to the Western World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)
When the United States Invaded Russia: Woodrow Wilson's Siberian Disaster (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013)
The Founders and the Bible (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016)

He has also contributed a host of essays to edited volumes, including two books published by Oxford University Press.

The 2026 Ciceronian Society Conference will be held March 12-14 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Panel and paper proposals are due September 1, 2025.

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0:00 Introduction
2:30 Inspiration
4:13 Golden Age
7:47 Arguments For and Against the Classics
20:04 Familiarity and Peculiarity
25:53 Cicero
32:06 The Founders and the Bible
44:11 Prayer
49:59 The Future
56:26 Opportunities