GLC Book Talk: David Blight with Connor Williams, author of “The Confederacy Myth: How an Insurrection of Slaveholders Tried to Destroy the United States”
In-person and online via zoom.
In-person seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Join Gilder Lehrman Center director David W. Blight and author Connor Williams for a discussion of this important new book.
What can Americans learn about our divided country today from the Civil War that divided us in the past?
Connor Williams’s "The Confederacy Myth" answers that question with a blistering historical exposé that reframes our understanding of the Confederacy towards with what it really was - a relatively small insurrection of uncompromising fanatics that plunged the nation into its deadliest war.
In his new book, Williams reveals the truth about the Confederacy by unraveling its myths and uncovering its perilous political tactics, irate ideologies, reckless brand of warfare, impotent governance, and enduring commitment to slavery. Most importantly, Williams reminds us why the United States prevailed in the Civil War: five out of six Americans resisted the Confederate insurgency and instead put everything on the line to fight for democracy so that our Republic would have a new birth of freedom.
Speakers
A public historian working between the traditions of academia and the exigencies of current events, Connor Williams shares the stories of our past to help shape the societies of our future. In 2021 and 2022 he worked for the United States Congress as Lead Historian for their "Naming Commission," tasked with removing all Confederate honorifics from the Department of Defense and elevating new (and true) American heroes in their place. In addition to teaching at Middlebury College and serving as Senior Director of Historical Initiatives for the Sagamore Institute of the Adirondacks (a non-profit educational institution), Connor consults for and with institutions, organizations, and communities seeking to research, reflect, and ethically and effectively reconcile with histories of intolerance, injustice and violence. "The Confederacy Myth" is his second book, born largely from his doctoral training at Yale.