holds the G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at Oklahoma University. He formerly held the SunTrust Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he was also a Professor of History. He specializes in the intellectual and cultural history of the United States, and his books include The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, which won the Organization of American Historians’ Merle Curti Award, The Student’s Guide to U.S. History, Religion Returns to the Public Square, and Figures in the Carpet: Finding the Human Person in the American Past.
He serves on the Board of Trustees and Academic Council for the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History. He is also a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum. He has served since 2002 on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a member of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the Secretary of Education concerning the accreditation of institutions of higher learning. Dr McClay is a frequent commentator on cultural issues and his 2020 book Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, which has received wide acclaim, presents a readable overview of American history and the values that sustain it.
