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Dedham Reads Together 2026 Author Talk

with Edward J. Larson

Joining us virtually from the West Coast, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward Larson discusses his newest book, Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters.

Professor Larson reflects upon the ongoing meaning of 1776 in the words and deeds of that seminal year and how the spirit of '76 continues to animate American history, ideas, and values.

The first 24 registrants will receive a complimentary copy of Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters (W.W. Norton & Co, Inc; 2025). Light refreshments served. Thank you to DLIT for generously sponsoring this program! 

For adults. Registration required. Please email Brittany at btuttle.ddm@minlib.net with questions. 

About the Book:

On the 250th anniversary of American independence, with the history of our founding a political battleground, this study of the ideas and battlefield sacrifices of 1776 by a Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar could not be more timely. At the beginning of 1776, virtually no one in the colonies was advocating independence: Americans based their grievances against Parliament on their rights as British subjects. By the end of 1776, independence was on every patriot's lips. The many tyrannies of a king had made an independent republic necessary. In Declaring Independence, Edward J. Larson gives us a compact, insightful history of that pivotal year. He traces a narrative arc that runs from the inspiring appeals of Paine's Common Sense in January; through the soaring ideals of midsummer, when the Continental Congress grounded independence in the self-evident truths of human equality and individual rights, and the states wove revolutionary principles of republican government and the rule of law into their new constitutions; to Paine's urgent pleas of December, when "the times that try men's souls" required Americans not "to shrink from the service of their country." Dramatic military clashes also punctuate the year: the British evacuation of Boston forced by the brilliant maneuvers of Washington's Army; the Battle of Long Island, a costly defeat that opened New York to British occupation; and the desperate year-end victory of a threadbare American army at Trenton. Combined, these ideals and the sacrifices remind us why, on this anniversary and at this political moment, 1776 matters to all of us. --Provided by the Publisher

About the Author:

Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in History with a Ph.D. in the history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a law degree from Harvard, Edward Larson is the University Professor of History and holds the Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University. The author of fifteen books and over a hundred articles, he taught at the University of Georgia for twenty years and chaired its History Department. His books range from bestsellers on revolutionary America to his prizewinning history of the 1925 Scopes Trial, Summer for the Gods. Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters is his latest book. 

Dedham Reads Together is a collaborative annual initiative presented by Dedham Public Library, Dedham Public Schools, and Dedham Library Innovation Team to promote literacy and community in Dedham, MA through shared reads and activities.

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