Greg Grandin: The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall

KPFA Radio 94.1 FM presents

GREG GRANDIN
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall In the Mind of America

advance tickets: $12, T: 800-838-3006 or Pegasus Books (3 sites), Books Inc (Berkeley), Moe's Books, Walden Pond Bookstore, East Bay Books
Mrs. Dalloway's $15 door, benefits KPFA Radio 94.1FM info: kpfa.org/events

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award & National Book Critics' Circle Award now offers an eye-opening new interpretation of our history.

From the very beginning of this nation, the idea of an open frontier has been at the core of our American identity, symbolizing a future full of promise. Today, however, the USA has an entirely new symbol: the border wall. In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier across the full sweep of US history, from the American Revolution all the way to the Trump presidency. Throughout the centuries, Grandin shows, America's constant expansion served as a "gate of escape," helping to deflect domestic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that they country's problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. Now the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions and ugly racist nationalism back home with a vengeance.

Greg Grandin is the author of The Empire of Necessity, which won the Bancroft Prize; Fordlandia, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, plus a number of other widely acclaimed books, including Kissinger's Shadow, Empire's Workshop, The Last Colonial Massacre, and The Blood of Guatemala.

$12 advance, $15 door.