Regarding Maine on the occasion of its 200th anniversary of statehood, in the Boston Globe

Maine turned 200 this year, but the Bicentennial celebrations were cancelled by the pandemic, with Gov. Mills spending the official birthday, March 15, advising Mainers to lockdown to prevent the spread of the then barely understood coronavirus.

I wrote a six-part series for the Maine Sunday Telegram on statehood's meaning that wrapped up just as Covid-19 spread into the state back in March, but I also wanted to present some key points to an external audience, one in Massachusetts in particular for reasons readers of The Lobster Coast will quickly ascertain. So in this week's Boston Sunday Globe Ideas section, I had this essay on Maine's experience as a colony of a colony, how it shaped our culture and people, and the ways in which the pandemic and other global developments may shake up the postcolonial trajectory my native state has long been on. Hope you enjoy.

This is my first byline in the Globe, but in September I spoke to Ideas staff writer David Sharfenberg about the battle for the national "soul" of the U.S., the topic of my most recent book, Union.

Update, 10/30/20: Bloomberg's Boston bureau has a radio show and podcast, Bloomberg Baystate Business, and hosts Tom Moroney and Joe Shortsleeve kindly had me on the show today to talk about the phenomena described in the Globe piece. My portion starts at 0:50:32.

Speaking on UNION via the Boston Athenaeum, Sept. 23

It is my great pleasure to be returning to the Boston Athenaeum on this coming Wednesday, September 23, this time to speak on my new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood. Owing to the pandemic, this will be a virtual event this time, but the good news is that that means it's free and open to the public, anywhere and everywhere.

The event starts at 6 pm but you do need to register by Tuesday at 5pm. For more information, consult their page for the event herensult their page for the event here. Note that registration is indeed open now (despite the reference to it "opening shortly"), just click the red "Register" button on the right side of the page.

Books are being sold, online, by the Harvard Book Store, where I was scheduled to have an event this summer, before the pandemic put an end to book tours.

I was recently interviewed in the Boston Globe about the themes in the book, an article you can read here.

I last spoke at the Athenaeum in 2016 on American Character: The Epic Battle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good.

Talking with the Boston Globe about UNION and the war for America's soul

It was a pleasure speaking with the Boston Globe's David Scharfenberg last week about the struggle over the soul of the United States between defining ourselves by our ideals and doing so by way of preferred bloodlines -- the topic of my new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood.

The story lead the Ideas section of Sunday's Globe and can be found online here. I hope you'll check it out.

Last week I also spoke to the New Yorker's Robin Wright for this essay.

Colony, the Press Herald Maine Bicentennial series, concludes

With the world facing the biggest social, economic, and epidemiological crisis in at least two generations, I neglected to post the final two installments of "Colony," my six part Maine Sunday Telegram series on the backstory of Maine statehood and the lasting legacy of those (colonial) experiences.

The last two installments ran one and two weeks ago respectively and you can find the whole series on the Colony landing page over at the Press Herald.

Thanks to the incredible number of readers who wrote -- and continue to write -- with kind words about the series and what it meant to them. The most common question: will it be released as a mini-book? The answer is "I don't think so" -- the pandemic is drawing all the paper's resources -- but you can find most of these themes (and much, much more) in my 2004 book on the cultural and environmental history of Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier. 

Also, if you missed our 29-part series on Maine-Passamaquoddy relations, "Unsettled," it is indeed available as an e-book as well as free online to subscribers. I hope it brings some distraction to all of you bunkered down in the middle of this crisis.

Maine company taking orders for masks, Covid-19 tests, but its leader is facing criminal fraud indictments

Last week, the Boston Globe reported that a Maine company represented by former Portland legislator Diane Russell had reached out to Massachusetts officials and was supplying nearly a million urgently needed N95 respirators to firefighters, hospitals and other entities, as well as Covid-19 tests and other medical supplies in short supply.

In today's Portland Press Herald, I explored the backstory of the company, whose leader turns out to be facing a five count criminal indictment here in Maine for theft by deception, securities fraud, and selling securities without a license. He also owes New Hampshire over a quarter million dollars in restitution and fees in a related matter.

For details, please read the story, which I'll be following-up on.

[Update, 3/31/20: I have a follow-up story in today's paper which reports on how Russell drove a van to a New Jersey warehouse to collect a shipment of masks and then, on the way home to Maine, dropped parcels off with customers in Massachusetts.]

Also, if you value your local newspaper's pandemic coverage and want it to continue, subscribe. Advertising revenue is cratering and many papers are being forced to layoff reporters and close editions. Like many papers, the Press Herald is providing its coronavirus coverage for free, but that doesn't mean it isn't costing a lot to produce it.

Stay safe, wash your hands, and look out for one another.

Colony Chapter 4: the squatters rise up against Boston's Land Barons

Maine is celebrating the bicentennial of its statehood this year, but the story of our beginnings lies in the millennia and centuries that preceded March 15th, 1820, the day we regained our independence from Massachusetts. 

Colony, an ongoing six-part series in the Maine Sunday Telegram, tells that story, and the fourth installment appeared last Sunday, describing the nearly century-long armed insurrection in the Maine backcountry that foiled the plans of Boston's great land barons and set the captured colony on the path to statehood.

The series continues this coming Sunday in the Telegram, which is in fact the very day of Maine's Bicentennial.

If you enjoy this series and want more, consider reading my cultural history of Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (Viking, 2004) and, on Maine-Wabanaki relations in more recent times, the Portland Press Herald series "Unsettled," also available as an ebook at the usual outlets.

Colony, Chapter 3: Massachusetts' conquest of Maine

Maine is celebrating the bicentennial of its statehood this year, but the story of our beginnings lies in the millennia and centuries that preceded March 15th, 1820, the day we regained our independence from Massachusetts. 

Colony, an ongoing six-part series in the Maine Sunday Telegram, tells that story, and the third installment appeared last Sunday, telling the story of how Massachusetts Bay annexed the formerly-independent colony of Maine in the 1650s. At one point they even send soldiers in.

The conquest made Maine a colony of a colony, and Boston ruled what eventually became known as the District of Maine -- which didn't even border on the rest of the Commonwealth -- in the interests of mainland Massachusetts, not the people living on the eastern frontier. As we'll see in the next three chapters of Colony, this experience, which lasted until 1820, fundamentally shaped Maine's culture, economy and self-conception.

If you enjoy this series and want more, consider reading my cultural history of Maine, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (Viking, 2004) and, on Maine-Wabanaki relations in more recent times, the Portland Press Herald series "Unsettled," also available as an ebook at the usual outlets.

Speaking on history of immigration in Maine, Portland, Jan. 18

Portland Ovations is convening a panel discussion on the history of immigration in Maine on January 18th at the Maine Historical Society in Portland, and I'm pleased to be taking part. It kicks off at 1pm and is free and open to the public.

Here's the description from Portland Ovations:

When we talk about immigration to Maine, we start with white settler-colonialism. What has been the impact of immigration on Maine’s land and people from the first French explorers in 1604 to the present? What are the drivers of recent immigration movements, and how does each new wave shift Maine’s economy and culture? What specific challenges do Maine’s environment and population pose for new arrivals; and how do we support Maine’s first peoples?

**PANELISTS**

- Tilly Laskey, Curator of 'Holding Up The Sky' and Native art and culture specialist at, Maine Historical Society
- Alain Nahimana, Executive Director, The Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center
- Maulian Dana, Tribal Ambassador, Penobscot Nation
- Colin Woodard, Journalist, Author of American Nations and The Lobster Coast
- Moderator, Linda Nelson, Deputy Director, Portland Ovations and Bowdoin College graduate in American Studies.

In Boston, talking about American nationhood and its problems with The American Question.

Spent yesterday in the belly of the beast, the old Massachusetts Bay Colony, doing an interview for this forthcoming documentary film project, The American Question. Filmmakers Guy Seemann and James Kicklighter are asking what holds us together, as communities or as a nation and I enjoyed sharing my take. Found myself talking a lot about the themes in Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, which comes out in June 2020.

Found myself at one point standing, unexpectedly, at the spot on the edge of Boston Common where a (mostly African-American) crowd protested the release of the Klan-loving The Birth of a Nation back in 1915, which features in Union. The Tremont Theater was across Tremont Avenue. Now, appropriately enough, there's a gigantic AMC Loews Theater on the site.

Speaking on American Nations at UMass Amherst, Oct. 31

I'll be presenting on American Nations: The History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on October 31, starting at about 10 am.

It's one of the keynote addresses at the university's "Combating Polarization" symposium. It's free and open to the public, but you do need to pre-register via the links here.

My co-presenters include Sara Konrath of Indiana University, who studies empathy and altruism, and UMass Amherst's own Jamila Lysicott, assistant professor of social justice education. The idea is to better understand what polarizes communities -- a public university campus, for instance -- and how people can constructively interact in such an environment.

There are full details via the top link above.

Speaking on American Nations, Needham, Mass., June 5

I'll be speaking about North American regionalism and its effects on U.S. politics, history, identity and most everything else in the western Boston suburb of Needham on Sunday, June 5 at 7 pm.

The talk, based on American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, is the keynote for the annual meeting of the Friends of the Needham Public Library and is free and open to the public. It takes place at the library, 1139 Highland Avenue (directions and parking information here.)

Delighted to see any metro Boston readers who can make it.

Speaking on the Scots-Irish legacy in Maine and the nation, Aug. 14, Brunswick, Maine

This is the 300th anniversary of the coming of the Scots-Irish to New England and to mark the occasion, there's a multi-day conference taking place this week at Bowdoin College sponsored by the Maine Ulster Scots Project.

The 2018 Diaspora Conference and Reunion opens tomorrow morning, August 14 at Bowdoin's Kresge Hall and continues through Thursday, with presentations from scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.

I'm pleased to be giving the opening keynote Tuesday night on the impact of the Scots-Irish migration on both Maine and North America, issues I wrote about in some detail in The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier and American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America respectively. I'm preceded by Norman Houston, director of the Northern Ireland Bureau, the diplomatic mission of that part of the UK to the US and Canada.

Conference information can be found here.

At 1 pm tomorrow I'm also speaking about the political ramifications of American Nations in Maine Public radio's live interview and call-in program, "Maine Calling." Tune in if you can.

Talking Maine's 1820 split from Mass. with KQED's California Report

This November, Californians will be asked if they want to split their state into three, a measure spearheaded by venture capitalist Tim Draper. I wrote about some of the problems Draper's borders present, in historical-cultural terms, over at Medium last month.

But this week, I got to talk about an entirely different aspect of historical background on KQED's statewide "California Report": the lessons and precedents set by Maine's split from Massachusetts in 1820.

Readers of The Lobster Coast are aware of the two entities were separate colonies back in the 1640s, when the English Civil War pit Royalist, Anglican, semi-feudal, West Country-dominated Maine against Puritan, Parliament-backing, East Anglia-settled Massachusetts. The execution of the King cleared the way for Boston to annex the Maine settlements, which they ruled as a colony -- the District of Maine -- for nearly 70 years. The War of 1812 -- when Massachusetts refused to defend eastern Maine or help the federal government rollback the British occupation of it -- was just the final blow to Commonwealth unity.

But I digress. Here's a link to the audio of our interview, and here's the web story. (KQED is the San Francisco NPR affiliate, and one of the nation's public radio "superstations."

Speaking on American Nations and the gun debate, Gloucester, Mass., May 19

I'll be speaking about how the existence of the American Nations helps explain enormous geographic disparities in violence, capital punishment, and gun policies at a public event on Massachusetts' North Shore May 19.

It's the keynote of "Finding Common Ground," a four-hour symposium on gun violence and the application of the Second Amendment organized by the Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation taking place from 2 to 6pm at the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church, and including presentations from Gloucester High School students, the commander of the area American Legion Post, and others. My talk starts at about 4. Donations welcome.

Details on the event can be found here.

I wrote on the disparities of the regional cultures in regards to these issues in this 2013 Tufts Magazine cover story.

My next public talk is July 3 at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, on the themes raised in American Character, which was a finalist for last year's Chautauqua Prize.

A catastrophic year for North Atlantic right whales

This has been a terrible year for one of the most endangered marine mammals on Earth, the North Atlantic right whale, which has a surviving population of just 500. As I reported in Wednesday's Portland Press Herald, at least a dozen of the rare whales had been found dead off New England and Atlantic Canada, most of them in waters they had not previously been known to frequent.

Another whale carcass has since been reported off Massachusetts.

Why is this happening? Scientists aren't certain, but food -- and therefore climate change -- is believed to be a driving factor. Read on to learn more.

I've reported extensively on the right whales in the past, when it appeared they had finally turned a corner. For more on this, start here.

Exploring the lasting legacy of early Maine and New Hampshire

Readers of The Lobster Coast and American Nations are aware of the lasting effects of Colonial Era events on the future trajectories and characteristics of North America's disparate regional cultures and subcultures. Maine, especially, is shaped by events in the 17th and early 18th centuries, when a distinctive Anglican/Royalist/West Country-influenced society was made a colony of Puritan/Anti-Royalist/East Anglia-domnated Massachusetts. Its a colonial legacy that continues to effect our development, attitudes, values, and economic performance, even though few Mainers today either know the history.

A new exhibit at a museum on the border of Maine and New Hampshire shines a light on this poorly understood period in the two colonies' history, then bound together by shared experience and resistance to Massachusetts overrule. "Forgotten Frontier" is showing at the Old Berwick Historical Society's Counting House Museum in South Berwick, Maine, and I visited and wrote about it in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram. Have a look and consider a visit.

On pirates in Maine in the Press Herald and on WCSH-6

By coincidence, I both wrote about and was interviewed about pirates in Maine last week.

Maine's NBC affiliates, WCSH-6 here in Portland and WLBZ-2 in Bangor, were curious about the legendary treasure of Jewell Island in Casco Bay. Captain Kidd is said to have left his mother lode there, so could it be true? No, I told them from a float on said bay, but some of the other pirates I wrote about in Republic of Pirates definitely did visit Casco Bay, so anything's possible, however unlikely. Here's the segment.

Those pirates belonged to Black Sam Bellamy's flotilla -- the vessels that survived a spring storm off Cape Cod in 1717, that is. By coincidence, an exhibit of artifacts and treasures from the wreck of Bellamy's flagship -- which didn't make it -- has opened here in Portland, and I have this story in the Maine Sunday Telegram about the pirates and the controversies surrounding the man who found the Whydah.

For those eager to learn more about Bellamy and the golden age pirates, consider my third book.

Feds end contentious northern Gulf of Maine scallop season

In yesterday's Portland Press Herald, I wrote about the contentious federal fishery for scallops in the northern Gulf of Maine, a special management area off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, and part of Eastern Massachusetts.

Federal authorities closed the fishery at 12:01 am yesterday when small boat fishermen hit their 17,000 pound quota for the year. That part is normal. What's surprising: larger vessels had taken more than a million pounds in the same area and the small boat guys were desperately trying to hit the quota to stop large boats from taking more scallops.

Yes, there are different rules at work for two different types of scallop fishermen in the same waters, creating a confusing tension-filled situation that's sparked the close interest of one of Maine's US Senators and US Representatives. Read on in the story to learn more.

My most recent article on fisheries was about the havoc many fear will strike the fishery management world as a result of President Trump's "two-for-one" regulatory order, which experts say is completely unworkable in the fisheries context.

For more on the Gulf of Maine, consider reading my series on climate change in the Gulf, or my cultural history of coastal Maine, The Lobster Coast. For more on fisheries generally, there's my first book on the crisis in the worlds oceans, Ocean's End.

That is all.

Collins defends silencing Warren, and other DC tales

Two stories on Maine's U.S. Senators and Trump cabinet nominee confirmations to share:

In tomorrow's Portland Press Herald, I have this story, in which Sen. Susan Collins (R) defends her vote to silence her colleague, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, for reading a letter from MLK Jr's widow that "impugns" the character of Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for attorney general, who was confirmed by Collins and her colleagues this evening. (Maine's other senator, Independent Angus King, opposed the move.)

In yesterday's Press Herald, I reported on the two senators' votes against education secretary Betsy DeVos, who was also confirmed. (Collins had earlier cast the decisive vote to let DeVos' nomination out of committee.)

That is all.

Speaking at the Boston Athenaeum, Mar. 31

This Thursday, March 31st I'll be lecturing on my newly-released American Character at the venerable Boston Athenaeum

The event starts at 6pm at the storied library's 10 1/2 Beacon Street building. The good news is that it's free if you're a member; the bad news is that it is $15 if you are not, but I promise it will be worth it. There will be a reception afterward.

Either way, they ask you to register here.

Don't live in Boston? Don't despair. My full event schedule, updated regularly, can be found here.