Talking the Republic of Pirates in, yes, Nassau, The Bahamas, Feb. 24

My third book, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down is the most comprehensive, back-to-the-archives account of the most famous pirate outbreak in history, the one that's responsible for virtually all of our pirate pop culture imagery and the inspiration for the pirates of Robert Louis Stevenson and the Walt Disney Company.

That pirate gang was able to become as fearsome as it did because they had a fortified base, a pirate republic if you will, at Nassau in the failed British colony of the Bahamas, which had been sacked and destroyed by the enemy in the War of Spanish Succession. Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, Calico Jack Rackham, Stede Bonnet, Mary Read, Anne Bonny and many other infamous pirates gathered together there, protected by the repurposed fort, supported by a population of rogues, escaped slaves, and opportunists, and supplied by the unscrupulous merchants of Harbour Island. Its a remarkable tale from start to finish, and the book has inspired an NBC series (Crossbones with John Malkovich and Kate Foy) and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which recreated early 18th century Nassau in great detail (and for which I served as a historical consultant.)

So it's with great pleasure to announce that on Monday, February 24, I'll be speaking on the pirates in Nassau at the Pirate Republic Brewery Taproom, located, appropriately enough, on Woodes Rogers Walk on a site that would have been smack in the middle of the old pirate village. It's at 6pm and free and open to the public. Parrots optional.

Colony, a six-part series on Maine's long path to statehood

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, a six-part series that launched in the Maine Sunday Telegram today tells that story. It's a harrowing and little understood saga of war and betrayal, of clashing empires and ethnic cleansing, of an intra-English civil war and a 170 year colonial occupation by Massachusetts of what had been a separate province. These events shaped us as a people and explain some of our culture’s most impressive virtues and most frustrating faults, as well as the still fraught relationship between this land’s real natives and the rest of us whose families came “from away” at some point in the past four hundred years.

This first chapter is on the prehistoric and immediate contact period hereabouts. The series continues each Sunday for the next month and a half.

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.

[Update, 3/5/2020: You can read Chapter 2 here and Chapter 3 here.]

Speaking (a lot) about most everything at Star Island's Natural History Week, June 20-27

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be the annual speaker on Star Island, Isles of Shoals, for this year's Natural History Week, held June 20 to 27. [Update, 5/4/2020: Star Island's entire summer season has been cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic.]

Natural History Week - "Living in a Changing World" -- is held each year on the bucolic island, located off the coast of southern New Hampshire, but in a small archipelago that straddles the border with Maine. Attendees spend the whole week on the island, enjoying its beauty and nature by day, and attending daily talks by your truly and others. 

During the week I'll be speaking on:

* the crisis in the world's oceans (topic of my first book, Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas) and the warming of the Gulf of Maine (subject of a Portland Press Herald series I wrote that was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize.)

* the cultural and environmental history of coastal Maine (subject of my second book, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier) and a forthcoming Press Herald series tied to Maine's Bicentennial this year.

* the true story, reassembled from archival sources, of the great Caribbean pirate gang led by Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, and others -- pirates who plied the waters of the Gulf of Maine as well as the Spanish Main. (A story told in The Republic of Pirates.)

* the reasons why the United Staes is polarized and paralyzed, which have their origins in the differences between the distinct colonial projects on the eastern and southwestern rims of what is now the United States, subject of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

* and perhaps American Character: The Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good and the new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, to be released June 16th, as well.

Registration information at their website, and further information at Star Island Corp's mother ship. I look forward to meeting those of you who decide to attend.

Maine Climate Council: state meeting near-term targets, but transportation fix a challenge

Under Gov. Janet Mills, Maine has committed to a range of relatively tough climate goals: reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent (vis a vis 1990 levels) by 2030; becoming carbon neutral by 2045; and reducing GHGs by 80 percent vs 1990, the world's baseline metric since the days of the original Kyoto conference. But how to accomplish that?

The Maine Climate Council, a statutory body with gubernatorial appointees, is tasked with figuring that out, and they had their second full meeting this past week. I reported on the proceedings in the Portland Press Herald.

The highlights: (1) the state calculates we're on target to meet our 2020 target of a 10 percent reduction in 1990-level GHGs, but keeping on course for the 2030 and 2050 targets will be a challenge; (2) a calculation of our carbon budget suggests that ongoing forest growth and the manufacture of durable forest products are offsetting 75 percent of our current emissions, which means our biggest-in-the-nation forest cover almost ensures that we'll be carbon neutral if and when we meet our GHG targets and; (3) reducing transportation GHGs -- 54 percent of the total and rising all the time -- is going to be the biggest challenge.

I last reported on the climate council on the occasion of their first meeting, and also wrote on what it will likely take to be carbon neutral here, and on Gov. Mills' original carbon neutrality announcement before the UN here.

Fun fact: the Gulf of Maine is the second fastest warming part of the entire world ocean, which has already had a whole range of effects discussed in this Press Herald series from 2015, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer, meaning you really ought to read it if you're interested in this topic!

Stacey Abrams, in Maine, urges fight against voter suppression

Stacey Abrams, the Georgia legislator who narrowly lost a controversial gubernatorial race in 2018 to the man who organized the state's voter purge, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, was in Portland last week, speaking at the University of New England on the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

She got into the race after spending years organizing to turn out African-American, Latino, and young voters and boosted their turnout massively. Meanwhile Kemp was engaging in what she describes as voter suppression, a challenge to democracy she urged the audience -- which included Gov. Janet Mills -- to help confront.

Read about it my story for the Portland Press Herald.

"Putin's Favorite Congressman" moves to Maine

Dana Rohrabacher is a surfing enthusiast, cannabis activist, and former Reagan speechwriter who once joined muhajadeeen to attack Russian targets and Afghanistan and arm wrestled a visiting bureaucrat named Vladimir Putin in a DC bar while representing Orange County, California for 15 terms in Congress. In recent years -- to the consternation of some of his fellow Cold Warriors -- he emerged as the most vociferous defender and apologist for Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban, a friend of British populist Nigel Farage, and a visitor to Julian Assange.

But after losing reelection in 2018, he declared he would be moving to Maine. Now, as I reported last week in the Maine Sunday Telegram, he's here, having moved his family to York full-time. He doesn't appear to be engaging in cannabis politics here in Maine -- where the newly legalized recreational marijuana industry is just getting going -- but he is backing a mentee of his, Republican 2nd District Congressional hopeful Eric Brakey, who I caught up with for the story.

I first became aware of Rohrabacher in 2015, when I was back in Hungary writing this POLITICO story on Orban.

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.