Colin Woodard | |
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Born | December 3, 1968 |
Occupation |
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Nationality | American |
Education | Tufts University (BA) University of Chicago (MA) |
Notable works | American Nations (2011) |
Website | |
colinwoodard |
Colin Woodard (born December 3, 1968 [1] ) is an American journalist and writer known for his books American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (2011), The Republic of Pirates (2007), and The Lobster Coast (2004), a cultural and environmental history of coastal Maine.
Woodard graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. and completed his M.A. in international relations at the University of Chicago. In 1999 he was a Pew Fellow in International Journalism at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies. In 2021 he was named a visiting senior fellow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University, where he is now founder and director of Nationhood Lab. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Woodard lives outside Portland, Maine. [2]
Woodard is the author of six works of non-fiction. His first book, Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas, appeared in 2000. His most recent, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood was published in the spring of 2020 and named a Christian Science Monitor Book of the Year. [3]
He is Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University, [4] a project focused on counteracting the authoritarian threat to American democracy and the centrifugal forces threatening the U.S. federation’s stability. Prior to that he was State & National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram where he received a 2012 George Polk Award [5] and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series on climate change and the Gulf of Maine. [6]
He received a 2004 Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Public Advocacy for his global environmental reporting, the 2012 Maine Literary Award for Non-Fiction for American Nations, the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Non-Fiction for American Character and a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Woodard was a finalist for the 2016 Chautauqua Prize for American Character and for a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in both 2013 and 2014. [7] [8] In 2014, The Washington Post named him one of the "Best State Capitol Reporters in America" [9] and the Maine Press Association chose him as Journalist of the Year. [10]
His third book, The New York Times bestseller [11] The Republic of Pirates, was the basis of the 2014 NBC drama Crossbones , written by Neil Cross and starring John Malkovich. [12] Woodard was a historical consultant for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag , which was set in the time period covered in Republic of Pirates. [13]
He was a long-time foreign correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor , San Francisco Chronicle , and The Chronicle of Higher Education , and has reported from more than fifty foreign countries and seven continents, from postings in Budapest, Hungary; Zagreb, Croatia; Washington, D.C.; and the US–Mexico border. His work has appeared in dozens of publications including The Economist , The New York Times , Smithsonian , The Washington Post , Newsweek/The Daily Beast , Bloomberg View , The Guardian , Washington Monthly , and Down East , where he was a contributing editor. He is currently a contributing editor at Politico .
His sixth book, Union, was released in 2020. The American Scholar said the book "shows just how powerful a form popular nonfiction can be in the hands of a disciplined writer who won’t tolerate generality or abstraction." [14] Loyola's Commonweal Magazine reviewed the book and called it "a fast-paced, character-centered narrative" but questioned its lack of women's voices. [15] Writing in The Washington Post , David W. Blight said "Woodard succeeds in demonstrating the high stakes of master narratives, versions of the past that people choose as identities and stories in which they wish to live." [16]
Claiborne de Borda Pell was an American politician and writer who served as a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island for six terms from 1961 to 1997. He was the sponsor of the 1972 bill that reformed the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, which provides financial aid funding to American college students; the grant was given Pell's name in 1980 in honor of his work in education legislation.
The Portland Pirates were a minor league professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League (AHL). Their home arena was the Cross Insurance Arena in downtown Portland, Maine. The franchise was previously known as the Baltimore Skipjacks from 1982 to 1993.
Barry Trotz is a Canadian ice hockey executive, former player and coach. He is the general manager for the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League (NHL). Prior to that he served as an advisor to General Manager David Poile. He is the former head coach of the Nashville Predators, Washington Capitals and New York Islanders. Trotz is known for his defensive-minded coaching style and is currently ranked third all-time in NHL coaching wins, behind only Scotty Bowman and Joel Quenneville. He is often referred to by fans and players as "Trotzy".
The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the award as "one of only a couple of journalism prizes that means anything".
The Portland Press Herald is a daily newspaper based in South Portland, Maine, with a statewide readership. The Press Herald mainly serves southern Maine and is focused on the greater metropolitan area of Portland.
The Portland Museum of Art, or PMA, is the largest and oldest public art institution in the U.S. state of Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882. It is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District in Portland, Maine.
G. Wayne Miller is an American author, journalist and filmmaker. He is a faculty member at Salve Regina University's Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, in Newport, Rhode Island, where he is co-founder and director of the Story in the Public Square program and co-host and co-producer of the national PBS/SiriusXM Radio show by the same name.
James V. Hart is an American screenwriter and author. He is known for his literary adaptations, such as Dracula, Frankenstein and Hook.
A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates, or simply A General History of the Pyrates is a 1724 book published in Britain containing biographies of contemporary pirates, which was influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates. Its author uses the name Captain Charles Johnson, generally considered a pen name for one of London's writer-publishers. The prime source for the biographies of many well-known pirates, the book gives an almost mythical status to the more colourful characters, and it is likely that the author used considerable artistic license in his accounts of pirate conversations. The book also contains the name of Jolly Roger, the pirate flag, and shows the skull and crossbones design.
Tom Caron is a sportscaster and anchor on New England's NESN network.
Ethan King Strimling is an American non-profit executive, television personality, and politician from Maine. Strimling was elected to 3 terms in the Maine Senate (2003-2009), one term a Mayor of Portland, Maine (2015-2019), serving one term. Strimling previously served as a Democratic state senator from 2003 to 2009. He was the Executive Director of LearningWorks, a West End non-profit organization, and has served as a political columnist and commentator for the Portland Press Herald.
Guy Gannett Communications was a family-owned business consisting of newspapers in Maine and a handful of television stations in the eastern United States. The company was founded by its namesake, Guy P. Gannett, in 1921, and was managed by a family trust from 1954 to 1998, when it sold most of its properties to The Seattle Times Company and Sinclair Broadcast Group.
William Roorbach is an American novelist, short story and nature writer, memoirist, journalist, blogger and critic. He has authored fiction and nonfiction works including Big Bend, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and the O. Henry Prize. Roorbach's memoir in nature, Temple Stream, won the Maine Literary Award for Nonfiction, 2005. His novel, Life Among Giants, won the 2013 Maine Literary Award for Fiction.[18] And The Remedy for Love, also a novel, was one of six finalists for the 2014 Kirkus Fiction Prize.. His latest book, The Girl of the Lake, is a short story collection published in June 2017. His novel in progress is Lucky Turtle.
Salve Regina University is a private coeducational Roman Catholic university in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It was founded in 1934 by the Sisters of Mercy and is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. The university enrolls more than 2,800 undergraduate and graduate students annually.
Agnes Bushell is an American fiction writer and teacher. She has published steadily since her work first appeared in print in the mid-1970s. She is the author of fourteen novels and innumerable essays and book reviews most of which have appeared in Maine newspapers and publications, including Down East Magazine. She has taught literature and writing at Maine College of Art, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of Southern Maine, and lives in Portland, Maine with her husband, James Bushell, a criminal defense lawyer.
The Republic of Pirates was the base and stronghold of a loose confederacy run by privateers-turned-pirates in Nassau on New Providence island in the Bahamas during the Golden Age of Piracy for about twelve years from 1706 until 1718. While it was not a republic in a formal sense, it was governed by an informal pirate code, which dictated that the crews of the Republic would vote on the leadership of their ships and treat other pirate crews with civility. The term comes from Colin Woodard's book of the same name.
The Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University is a research center devoted to the exploration and study of politics, international relations, public policies and ideas. Dedicated to the legacy of the late Sen. Claiborne Pell, a Newport, Rhode Island resident during his 36 years in the U.S. Senate, the center promotes American engagement in the world, effective government at home, and civic participation by all Americans.
Avery Yale Kamila is an American journalist and community organizer in the state of Maine. Kamila has written a food column for the Portland Press Herald /Maine Sunday Telegram and its affiliated newspapers since 2009.
Donald Cotesworth Gellers, also known by his Jewish name Tuvia Ben-Shmuel Yosef, was an American lawyer. In the 1960s he lived in Eastport, Maine, where he represented members of the Passamaquoddy tribe in court and advocated for their civil rights. In 1968 he filed a land claim suit on the tribe's behalf. Immediately after filing the suit he was charged with constructive possession of six marijuana cigarettes. He was convicted on a felony charge and sentenced to prison. After an unsuccessful appeal process, he moved to Israel without serving his sentence. He returned to the United States in 1980 and practiced as a rabbi until his death. In 2020 he was granted a posthumous pardon by the state of Maine.
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America is an American non-fiction book written by Colin Woodard and published in 2011. Woodard proposes a framework for examining American history and current events based on a view of the country as a federation of eleven nations, each defined by a shared culture established by each nation's founding population.