Booksmith and Berkeley Arts & Letters are thrilled to present historian Heather Cox Richardson for her book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. Heather will be in conversation with Rebecca Solnit, author most recently of Orwell's Roses and editor of Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility. Save the date and join us!

Please note: This event is sold out.

About the book

“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 

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. 

In the midst of the impeachment crisis of 2019, Heather Cox Richardson launched a daily Facebook essay providing the historical background of the daily torrent of news. It soon turned into a newsletter and its readership ballooned to more than 2 million dedicated readers who rely on her plainspoken and informed take on the present and past in America. 

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. 

Richardson’s talent is to wrangle our giant, meandering, and confusing news feed into a coherent story that singles out what we should pay attention to, what the precedents are, and what possible paths lie ahead. In her trademark calm prose, she is realistic and optimistic about the future of democracy. Her command of history allows her to pivot effortlessly from the Founders to the abolitionists to Reconstruction to Goldwater to Mitch McConnell, highlighting the political legacies of the New Deal, the lingering fears of socialism, the death of the liberal consensus and birth of “movement conservatism.” 

Many books tell us what has happened over the last five years. Democracy Awakening explains how we got to this perilous point, what our history really tells us about ourselves, and what the future of democracy can be.

About the authors

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. She is the cohost of the Vox podcast, Now & Then.

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and urban history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and catastrophe. Her books include Orwell’s Roses; Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; and A Field Guide to Getting Lost. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she writes regularly for the Guardian, serves on the board of the climate group Oil Change International, and recently launched the climate project Not Too Late (nottoolateclimate.com). Author photo by Trent Davis Bailey.

Please note:

• This is a ticketed, in-person event to be held at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway in Oakland, CA (cross street is 27th).
• Because we’re limiting capacity, we can't guarantee we'll have space for walk-ins. 
• We are happy to offer copies of Democracy Awakening: order a ticket if you'd like to pick up a copy at the event, or order here if you just want a copy and no admission. You can order Heather's previous books here.
• You can order books by Rebecca Solnit here.
• If we feel it is not safe to gather, as the event gets closer, we will pivot to a virtual event and your registration will remain valid.
• Questions? Accessibility requests? Write [email protected].