Historian and bestselling author Colin Woodard will present the 2026 Adams Lecture on his latest book, Nations Apart: How Clashing Regional Cultures Shattered America. In this timely study, Woodard reveals how centuries-old regional differences have brought American democracy to the brink of collapse while also presenting a powerful story that can bridge our cultural divisions and save the republic.

The colonial era settlement patterns and the cultural geography they left behind are at the root of our  political polarization, economic inequality, and public health crises. Woodard will discuss his road map to right the country based on the document that first bound our regions together: the Declaration of Independence.

Colin Woodard a New York Times bestselling author and historian, is the director of Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, where he studies the problems of United States nationhood and how to solve them. A veteran foreign correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries and seven continents, he covered the fall and rise of authoritarian regimes across Eastern Europe and the Balkans and the aftermath of the Bosnian genocide. He received a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for his investigative work at Maine’s Portland Press Herald. He’s the author of seven books, including American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood and most recently, Nations Apart: How Clashing Regional Cultures Shattered America. His books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages and inspired a primetime NBC television series and a blockbuster Ubisoft video game. He’s a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago a past Pew Fellow in International Journalism at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies and a current Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London. He lives in Maine.

About the Adams Lecture
Named in honor of John Adams, who served as Librarian of the Salem Athenaeum from 1994–2005, the Adams Lecture is devoted to topics pertaining to American history with a focus on New England.

Tickets:  $25 General Admission | $20 Members | Card to Culture
                   $125 Meet Colin! Reception: 5:00 p.m pre-lecture reception with Colin Woodard at the Salem Athenaeum

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