Heather Cox Richardson (Professor of History, Boston College)
April 1, 2021
Historians are fond of saying that the past doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes. To understand the present, we have to understand how we got here. Taking up some of the same questions, concerns, and analyses put forth in the newsletter Letters from an American, this webinar will demonstrate that you can’t get a grip on today’s politics without an outline of America’s Constitution, laws, economy, and social customs. We will explore what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American. These were the same questions a famous observer asked in a book of letters he published in 1782, the year before the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur called his book Letters from an American Farmer, once again revealing that while history doesn’t repeat itself, it sure rhymes.
Subjects
History / Political Science / Journalism and Communication / Correspondence / United States Politics / American History / News / Historians /