COVID-19 has forced book tours have gone virtual, and my next stop for Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood is tomorrow, June 28, and it’s a very cool one.
It’s hosted by Washington, DC’s famed bookstore, Politics & Prose, which uses an interview-and-audience-questions format via ZOOM. I’m delighted that Tom Gjelten — of NPR fame, author of a great book on the effects of the 1965 immigration act, and fellow former Balkans-in-the-1990s correspondent — is serving in the role of interviewer.
The event kicks off at 1pm. You can register for the Zoom-driven event here, and can also order books directly from the store’s website. I’ll be signing bookplates for them to add to those who want them.
Hope to see friends from DC and beyond there. [Update, 6/28/20: Thanks to Tom and P&P for a great event. The proceedings are now up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.]
For some early reviews of Union, check out this post (Library Journal, American Scholar) and this one (Kirkus, Booklist) and reviews in The Christian Science Monitor (which also named the book to their Top Ten Books for June list) and the Washington Post (by none other than David Blight, renowned scholar of Douglass and the rolling back of the civil rights gains of the Civil War.)
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven 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 Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.