Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams burned his letters and left no memoir, but was in his day proclaimed as the “chief incendiary” of the Revolution, the “prime mover,” the “patriarch of liberty,” and the target of the British troops – for arrest, or even assassination – whom Paul Revere was riding to warn on April 18, 1775. Schiff is renowned as a formidable researcher and biographer of extraordinary people, including Cleopatra, Benjamin Franklin, the Witches of Salem, Saint-Exupery, and Vera Nabokov (Pulitzer 2000).

This lecture will be held at Bedford Playhouse (633 Old Post Rd, Bedford, NY) due to ongoing construction at John Jay Homestead.

6:30 – Reception with light refreshments
7:00 – Lecture begins
8:00 – Book signing

Books will be available for purchase at the event.

Click here to purchase tickets for this lecture.

Linda Greenhouse, Justice on the Brink: A Requiem for the Supreme Court

Begun as a Covid project to “chronicl[e] the life of the Supreme Court from July 2020 through June 2021,” Justice on the Brink has become an exploration of the landmark decisions of the term, and this Court’s far-reaching engagement with foundational issues, including the role of precedent, doctrines of interpretation, styles of leadership, and politics. Currently an Opinion contributor to The New York Times, Greenhouse covered the Court from 1978 – 2008. She is the author of 5 other books, winner of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting, and lecturer and researcher at Yale Law School. She has been called the dean of living Supreme Court journalists.

This lecture will be held at Bedford Playhouse (633 Old Post Rd, Bedford, NY) due to ongoing construction at John Jay Homestead.

6:30 – Reception with light refreshments
7:00 – Lecture begins
8:00 – Book signing

Books will be available for purchase at the event.

Click here to purchase tickets for this lecture.

Linda Colley, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World

Are Constitutions the safeguards of freedom? Tracing the global history of written Constitutions from the 1750s to now, Colley weaves in changes in warfare, communications and global expansion, and describes how governments – including ours – also use their Constitutions to signal their legitimacy and modern-ness to the world. Colley received the Order of the British Empire: DBE (Dame of the Order of the British Empire) in 2022; she is the Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton.

This lecture will be held at Bedford Playhouse (633 Old Post Rd, Bedford, NY) due to ongoing construction at John Jay Homestead.

6:30 – Reception with light refreshments
7:00 – Lecture begins
8:00 – Book signing

Books will be available for purchase at the event.

Click here to purchase tickets for this lecture.