Pulitzer winning historian to speak

BETHEL — The 2012 “Stanley Russell Howe Lecture” at the Bethel Historical Society will be presented on August 2, at 7:30 p.m. by Alan Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and professor of history at the University of California.

Dr. Taylor’s topic will be "The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies.”

This year marks the bicentennial of the War of 1812, a formative moment in Maine and U.S. history, and the subject of Alan Taylor's new book.

As one reviewer has written, "In the early 19th century, the British and Americans renewed their struggle over the legacy of the American Revolution. In this second confrontation, soldiers, immigrants, settlers, and Indians fought to determine the fate of a continent. Would revolutionary republicanism sweep the British from Canada? Or would the British contain, divide, and ruin the shaky republic?"

Dr. Taylor will tell about this brutal (and sometimes comic) war in an effort to illuminate the tangled origins of the United States and Canada.

A Portland native, Alan Taylor is one of the foremost historians of early America. He is also part of a generation of historians committed to the revival of narrative history, rejecting the method-driven, quantitative work of the previous generation of "new social historians" and the theory-laden work of more recent "new cultural historians."

In addition to writing books for a wide public readership, he is a regular contributor of book reviews and essays to The New Republic.

Dr. Taylor's appearance is supported by the "Stanley Russell Howe Lecture Fund" of the Bethel Historical Society and copies of his book, "The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies," will be available for purchase and signing after the lecture.

The free program will be held in the Mason House exhibit hall (14 Broad Street) beginning at 7:30 p.m. and is open to the public.