In Sunday’s Washington Post I reviewed Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor’s new book, American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850. I’ve been reading Taylor, who was born and raised in Maine, since his Liberty Men and Great Proprietors came out more than 20 years ago, a book that helped inform my later work on the history of Maine, The Lobster Coast.
Of Taylor’s new book I wrote: “For Americans used to the comforting myth of an exceptional union boldly leading humanity in a better direction, this account may sting.” For more, please read the review, which appeared in Sunday’s Outlook section.
My most recent review for the Post was of University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner’s The Demagogue’s Playbook: The Battle for American Democracy from The Founders to Trump last August.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2016. He is a contributing editor at POLITICO and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.