Boston Athenæum

“American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good” March 31, 2016 at the Boston Athenæum. The struggle between individual rights and the good of the community as a whole has been the basis of nearly every major disagreement in America’s history, from the debates at the Constitutional Convention and the run-up to the Civil War, to the fights surrounding the agendas of the Federalists, the Progressives, the New Dealers, the civil rights movement, and the Tea Party. In American Character, Colin Woodard traces these two key strands in American politics through the two and a half centuries of the nation’s existence, from the first colonies through the Gilded Age, the Great Depression, and the present day, and he explores how different regions of the country have successfully or disastrously accommodated them.