The United States stands on the brink of a collapse into authoritarianism and dissolution. If we’re to fight back, what are we fighting for? What holds us together?
That’s a question Americans have wrestled with since the Republic’s founding, and the struggle between America defined as a place committed to the ideals in the Declaration and an America defined in ethnonationalist terms — homeland of the “Anglo-Saxon race” for instance — has gone on since the 1830s, the topic of my most recent book, Union.
I spoke about what this all means for us today recently at an event held at the University of New England that was recorded for broadcast on the stations of Maine Public radio. The segment aired last week on their “Speaking in Maine”‘ program and you can download it now at their website. I’m working on these issues at Nationhood Lab, a new project at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy.
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.