Heather Cox Richardson in conversation with Adam Felber at Live Talks Los Angeles
discussing her book, "Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America." The event took place on October 3, 2023.
From historian and author of the popular daily newsletter LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN, a vital narrative that explains how America, once a beacon of democracy, now teeters on the brink of autocracy - and how we can turn back.
Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College. She has written about the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the American West in award-winning books whose subjects stretch from the European settlement of the North American continent to the history of the Republican Party through the Trump administration. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and The Guardian, among other outlets.
“A vibrant, and essential history of America’s unending, enraging and utterly compelling struggle since its founding to live up to its own best ideals… It’s both a cause for hope, and a call to arms.”-Jane Mayer, author Dark Money
Two million people subscribe to the wisdom and insights history professor Heather Cox Richardson dispenses online via her newsletter. Her writing is like having a world-class scholar talk to you over the dinner table, decoding a confusing world and making you feel smarter and more knowledgeable than you did before. In Democracy Awakening, Richardson crafts a compelling and original narrative, explaining how, over the decades, a small group of wealthy people have made war on American ideals. By weaponizing language and promoting false history they have led us into authoritarianism - creating a disaffected population and then promising to recreate an imagined past where those people could feel important again. She argues that taking our country back starts by remembering the elements of the nation’s true history that marginalized Americans have always upheld. Their dedication to the principles on which this nation was founded has enabled us to renew and expand our commitment to democracy in the past. Richardson sees this history as a roadmap for the nation’s future.
Adam Felber is a writer, performer, and a regular panelist on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” He spent 11 season’s on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and has written several screenplays and books, including the recent “Confessions of a PuppetMaster” (HarperCollins). He’s the co-host of the long-running podcast “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone,” and the director/co-writer of the new eco-comedy KZfaq series, “Unf***ing the Planet.”