Happy 2019 everyone, and happy birthday to this blog, which started 10 years ago today with this post from Reykjavik, where I was starting a reporting trip in the wake of that country’s near-total (but ultimately short-lived) financial meltdown in the midst of the 2008 economic crisis.
Reflecting on the decade recorded on this blog, the major changes: (a) parenthood and (b) a not unrelated shift away from primarily foreign correspondent work to North American coverage; (c) becoming a staffer at Maine’s largest newspaper (where we won a big award and was a finalist for another); (d) the writing, completion, publication, and dissemination of American Nations and its successor, American Character; (e) the continued life of Republic of Pirates, via an NBC television show, an Ubisoft video game, and a variety of foreign translations; and (f) a reduction in the frequency and geographical scope of my travels — not-so-worldwide Woodard, as the decade turned out!
Here’s to an interesting second decade.
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.