America

Join us for a conversation with Greg Grandin, Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History at Yale University and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The End of the Myth (2019). In his new book, America, América: A New History of the New World, Grandin shows how the history of the United States has been fundamentally shaped by its relationship with Latin American nations. In their politics and national identities, he argues, countries across the hemisphere emerged from a constant and often turbulent engagement with one another. The conversation is moderated by Anne Garland Mahler, associate professor of Spanish at UVA and the author of From the Tricontinental to the Global South (2018) and editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the History of the Global South.

A limited number of lunches will be available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 11:30 AM. Grandin's book will be available for purchase. Parking is not available at Bond House. If you plan to drive, there is paid parking within walking distance at the Oakhurst Inn and Central Grounds Garage. For additional handicap accessible parking spots, consult the UVA accessibility map.

The Nau Lab's “Touchstones of Democracy” series explores key events, places, thinkers, and texts that inform the history and principles of democracy. Leading up to the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in July 2026, this event series is showcasing recent books that expand and deepen our understanding of the era of the American Revolution—and illuminate the connections of that period to the present.

The fall 2025 conversations are produced at the University of Virginia by the Karsh Institute of Democracy and the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Speakers

Greg Grandin is the Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of a number of prize-winning books, including The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. The End of the Myth won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the prize in History. Other books include Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic, first published in 2005 and significantly revised and expanded in 2021, and Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, as well as for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and picked by the New York Times, New Yorker, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and NPR for their “best of” lists, and Amazon.com named it the best history book of 2009.

He is also the author of The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World, which won the Bancroft Prize in American History. Grandin is also the author of The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America During the Cold War and The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation, which won the Latin American Studies Association’s Bryce Wood Award for the best book published on Latin America in any discipline. With Gil Joseph, Grandin co-edited A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence During Latin America’s Long Cold War.

A former consultant to the United Nations truth commission on Guatemala, Grandin is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written for various journals, including The Nation, The Guardian, The New York Times, Harper’s, The London Review of Books, Jacobin, The Atlantic, The Boston Review, and The Intercept.

Anne Garland Mahler is Associate Professor and Director of Latin American Studies at the University of Virginia. She is author/editor of the books From the Tricontinental to the Global South: Race, Radicalism, and Transnational Solidarity (2018); The Comintern and the Global South: Global Designs/Local Encounters (2023); A Wide Net of Solidarity: Antiracism and Anti-Imperialism from the Americas to the Globe (2025), and The Oxford Handbook of the History of the Global South (forthcoming, 2026). Mahler is creator and director of the digital publication Global South Studies.