Steele Brand

Steele Brand is a professor of history at Cairn University. He previously served as the Director of Undergraduate Fellows for the Clements Center for National Security and as a tactical intelligence officer for the U.S. Army.

Brand’s research focuses on republics in the Western tradition and the citizen armies that fought for them. Constitutional polities—especially premodern, agrarian republics—cultivated a unique set of virtues and a deadly form of civic militarism that created tough citizens who were as involved in politics as they were proficient at defending their political system. Brand has written on these themes in his book, Killing for the Republic: Citizen-Soldiers and the Roman Way of War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019). He has also published articles in venues such as Time, USA Today, LitHub, The Washington Post, and The Hill and in journals such as Religions and Humanitas about how this premodern ideal of citizen-soldiers has informed and inspired modern republics, particularly the United States.

His teaching explores how the public life of the spirit binds people together within a polity. His classes also emphasize how these polities or collections of polities (civilizations) intersect in the great diplomatic and military events of history. And because the lives of specific individuals so often reflect and define this broader narrative, he uses anecdotes, primary source readings, and film to illuminate how certain men and women—often unexpectedly—directed the course of their people’s story.

For more information about Steele and his research, see steelebrand.com.