Thanks to our friends at Harvard Bookstore, we are able to bring a wonderful event to you. Nathaniel Philbrick, famed author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower, will discuss his latest book THE RUSH, where he turns his storytelling lens West to follow the history of the gold rush, as it moves from riverbed to counting house to the halls of power.

His book reveals how the pursuit of gold shaped the development of America from the Wild West to debates over slavery in the Western territories, to the resulting chaos caused in Washington. The scramble for wealth reshaped our ideas of freedom, labor and belonging and by enabling the rise of California, pushed a fractured nation toward Civil War.

The author will speak at a live ticketed event at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Harvard Square on October 7.

Speakers

Nathaniel Philbrick

Nathaniel Philbrick is an American author and a winner of the National Book Award for his work of maritime history, “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex,” His book “Mayflower,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; “Valiant Ambition,” a winner of the George Washington Prize; and “Bunker Hill,” winner of the New England Book Award.

Ilyon Woo

Ilyon Woo is the New York Times best-selling author of “Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom” and “The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband.”