James G. Chappel, Gilhuly Family Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies

James Chappel is the Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History at Duke University. He works on the intellectual history of modern Europe and the United States, focusing on themes of religion, gender, and the family. He has published two books and published widely in both scholarly and non-scholarly sites (The New York Times, The Nation, and more). At Duke, he is committed above all to History undergraduates, especially majors, and to the pursuit of prison engagement opportunities. He is currently co-chair of the Prison Engagement Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and founded the Duke-in-Prison lecture series. 

His most recent book is called Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age (Basic Books, 2024). It is a history of aging, health, and disability in the USA from 1920 to the present. It appeared in November 2024 and has been widely reviewed in outlets like The New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times. 

His first book, Catholic Modern (Harvard, 2018), asks about the transformation of the Catholic Church in 20th century Europe. How did Catholics, long affiliated with monarchism and anti-Semitism, come to accept liberal democracy and capitalism? How, in a word, did Europe's Catholics become modern? The book argues that the major transformation took place in the 1930s and 40s. In those crucial years of violence and war, Catholics decided to stop trying to conquer society as a whole, and start trying to salvage "the family" as the source of moral authority and political order. The book thus explains how and why Catholics became buttresses of the postwar democratic order, and also explains the new centrality of gender and family ethics to Catholic life, thought, and policymaking.

His current research project concerns C.S. Lewis and the Second World War. This brings together previous interests in religion, war, and family. 

For more information, visit his personal website.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	226 Classroom Building, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:

Teaching (Fall 2025):

• HISTORY 124.01, HISTORY OF THE PRESENT Synopsis

  East Duke 209, TuTh 10:05 AM-11:20 AM

  (also cross-listed as PUBPOL 123.01)

Office Hours:

For an appointment, on Zoom or in real life, email me at jgc23@duke.edu

Education:

Ph.D.	Columbia University	2012
BA	Haverford	2005

Specialties:

European and Russia
Cultural History
Intellectual History
Global Transnational History
Human Rights and Social Movements

Research Interests:

I study the intellectual, political, and religious history of modern Europe. I am currently completing a manuscript entitled "The Struggle for Europe's Soul: Catholic Political Economy and the Salvation of Democracy, 1920-1960" (forthcoming from Harvard University Press). This work studies Catholic social-economic thought as a transnational whole, arguing that it had massive and overlooked impact on the shape of post-1945 Europe, where its influence was mediated through the new Christian Democratic parties that swept to power across the continent. I am also working, as a second project, on the institutional and social-scientific consolidation of the family in post-1945 Europe, and I am particularly interested in how the "problem of aging" is conceived and administered.

Keywords:

History • Muser Mentor • Philosophy

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Chappel, JG, Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State: Debating Social Order in Postwar West Germany, 1949–1989. By Peter C. Caldwell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. viii+226. $90.00., The Journal of Modern History, vol. 93 no. 4 (December, 2021), pp. 991-993, University of Chicago Press [doi]
2. Chappel, J, “Explaining the Catholic Turn to Rights in the 1930s”, in Christianity and Human Rights Reconsidered (September, 2020), pp. 63-80, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781108424707  [abs]
3. Chappel, J, “On the Border of Old Age”: An Entangled History of Eldercare in East Germany, Central European History, vol. 53 no. 2 (June, 2020), pp. 353-371, Cambridge University Press (CUP) [doi]  [abs]
4. Chappel, J, The God That Won: Eugen Kogon and the Origins of Cold War Liberalism, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 55 no. 2 (April, 2020), pp. 339-363, SAGE Publications [doi]  [abs]
5. Chappel, J, The Logic of Sanctuary: Towards a New Spatial Metaphor for the Study of Global Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 88 no. 1 (March, 2020), pp. 15-34, Oxford University Press (OUP) [doi]