BookPeople Presents: Bob Crawford - America's Founding Son

Please welcome Bob Crawford—bassist of The Avett Brothers—in conversation with Douglas Brinkley to celebrate America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, From President to Political Maverick!

This event is free and open to the public.

• Start time: 11:00 A.M.
• Run time: 45-60 minutes, followed by a signing line.
• Location: The second floor of BookPeople.

The author will be signing and personalizing copies of the book after the speaking portion of the event.

• To get a book signed, a copy of the event book or an item of equal value must be purchased from BookPeople.
• For high volume events, post-talk signing lines can become very long. For such events, we recommend arriving and checking in to the event early as that will get you into an earlier signing group.

Guidelines:

• Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis and is not guaranteed.

• If you have any other questions, please visit our Eventbrite FAQ. If your question isn't covered in the FAQ, feel free to email us at [email protected].
• All event guidelines are subject to change.
• BookPeople reserves the right to cancel or postpone this event if necessary.
• There will not be a live stream or recording available.

About the book:

An accessible and entertaining biography of our nation’s greatest public servant and original political maverick John Quincy Adams, from the bassist of the Grammy-nominated band the Avett Brothers.

During the tumultuous period between the era of the Founding Fathers and the disunion of the Civil War, John Quincy Adams was the man standing in the breach. After an unsuccessful presidential reelection campaign, he was left reckoning with his political legacy. But Adams would be dragged back into the fray in ways he never expected, pitting him against the slavocracy and Southern congressmen and solidifying him as a key ally to the antislavery cause.

America’s Founding Son tells the tale of Adams’s turbulent government career and his evolving views on slavery. Adams, along with lesser-known abolitionists Benjamin Lundy and Theodore Weld, found himself at the center of the coalition that leveled the first blow against slave power in the United States. The battles they fought would be foundational in the push for emancipation to follow. An entertaining deep dive into an under explored period in American history, America’s Founding Son shows how John Quincy Adams and the grassroots activism of the 1830s and ’40s shifted American politics forever.

About the author:

Bob Crawford is the bassist for the Grammy-nominated band the Avett Brothers, and creator of the iHeart Curiosity podcast series, Founding Son: John Quincy’s America and The SiriusXM Volume Channel Docuseries Concerts of Change: The Soundtrack of Human Rights. He’s also co-host of the Road to Now history podcast. However, Bob does not just play a historian—in 2020 he earned a master’s degree in history from Arizona State University. More important than his passion for music and history is his dedication to raising awareness about pediatric cancer. Bob and his wife, Melanie, are co-managing partners for The Press On Fund, an organization that seeks to find less toxic treatments for childhood cancer. Bob is periodically a speaker on behalf of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. It’s a personal cause, as Bob’s daughter Hallie is a three-time cancer survivor.

About the moderator:

Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, pres¬idential historian for the New-York Historical, trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a frequent commentator on CBS News, MSNBC and CNN. Brinkley is a trustee for the Madison Council at the Library of Congress, the National Archives Foundation, the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music, the Woody Guthrie Center, the Bob Dylan Center, and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master.” Six of his nonfiction books have been chosen as New York Times’s “Notable Book of the Year”. He is also the recipient of environmental leadership prizes such as the Frances K. Hutchison Medal (Garden Club of America), Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks (National Parks Conserva¬tion Association), and the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lifetime Heritage Award. His book The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. As a music producer he earned two Grammy Awards for Presidential Suite (Large Jazz Ensemble) and Fandango on the Wall for (Latin Jazz). He is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates in American studies. His two-volume, annotated Nixon Tapes recently won the Arthur S. Link–Warren F. Kuehl Prize. His most recent book is Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three children.

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Thank you for supporting Bob Crawford, Douglas Brinkley, and your local independent bookstore!

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