Last Lecture: Ben Sachs offers lessons from ‘Lord of the Rings’

For his Last Lecture to the Class of 2026 — a Harvard Law School tradition in which cherished faculty members deliver words of advice to graduating students — Professor Benjamin I. Sachs said he would begin with words from his favorite book. But to the audience’s surprise, Sachs quoted neither John Rawls nor Charles Dickens, neither Karl Marx nor William Shakespeare. Instead, he channeled J.R.R. Tolkien, author of “The Lord of the Rings,” a popular fantasy trilogy published in the 1950s. “I think the books contain some important lessons about life, maybe especially these days,” said Sachs, the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry. “Class of 2026, we all wish that the world you are graduating into were different than it is, that it wasn't beset by democratic decline, by the disconcerting advance of AI, by an economy that is unaffordable to more and more people, by climate change and by war,” he said. The audience might not be responsible for this mess, he said. Nonetheless, “what you do get to decide is what to do about those things.” Read more on Harvard Law Today: https://hls.harvard.edu/today/a-last-... ------ Visit our website: https://hls.harvard.edu/ Subscribe to our newsletter: https://hls.harvard.edu/newsletter Follow us on social media: YouTube:    / @harvardlawschool   Instagram:   / harvardlaw   Facebook:   / harvardlaw   LinkedIn:   / harvard-law-school