Speaking about Union and how the U.S. survives via Trinity Wall Street, Nov 12

Before the pandemic struck, I was looking forward to traveling to lower Manhattan this week to speak as part of Trinity Wall Street Church's Trinity Commons series. But things are as they are [gestures vaguely around in all directions] and so we'll be doing this event virtually. The good news is all of you can attend, wherever you are.

The event kicks off November 12 at 6:30 pm and you can register here. It's a conversation format with Trinity's Priest-in-charge and Vicar, the Rev. Phillip A. Jackson.

I'll be talking about the vulnerabilities of the U.S. as a nation, federation, and republic, our struggle to forge a story of shared purpose, and what we need to do to survive going forward. These are, of course, the topics of my new book Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, and American Character: The Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good. Together they form a trilogy and, I hope, provide informed paths forward for a beleaguered republic and the "great hope" it has long represented.

So do join us if you can. Stay safe out there and pray, if you do that sort of thing, that better times are ahead for the U.S. and the world.

(An unrelated programing note: if you happen to live in Denmark, I'll be you guest later today (Nov. 7) on Danish national television, talking about our election.)

 

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.

Explaining the Bundys' ideology at National Geographic

The occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon by armed militants rightly surprised many Americans. Their aims and ideology, however, are part of a regional heritage that goes back to when it was first colonized by European-Americans.

I lay out the historical-cultural origins of the Bundy family's ideology over at National Geographic today. In the Far West, demands that the federal government relinquish ownership of public lands go back to the early 1890s, when Washington first started putting limits on the exploitation of resources found therein. National parks, monuments, and forests have all been the target of such demands, as indeed was the Malheur refuge itself, back in the 1920s and 1930s.

For more on the Far West, its history and dominant political ethos, consider reading American Nations, my book on North American regionalism.