WORDS: What this blog is about

The word cloud gives an idea of what I've been writing about the last many years.

In my first book, MRS. HUNTER'S HAPPY DEATH: Lessons on Living from People Preparing to Die (Doubleday, 2006), I told the story of Mary Hunter, a woman who died an extraordinary death in the year 1800, casting her story against the stories of people I had known as a pastor who finished their lives with dignity and grace. You can read more here.

In ONE LIFE TO GIVE: Martyrdom and the Making of the American Revolution (forthcoming from Fortress Press, August 2021), I tell an untold story of the American Revolution, demonstrating how the lives of those who fought and died in the War of Independence were shaped by inherited traditions of English Protestant martyrdom.

Much of my current writing is shape by my work on the U.S.-Mexico border. You can find an archive of my published writing here.

I know that these interests may appear unrelated, but they don't feel that way to me. How do we think of ourselves as Americans? What are the deep and abiding passions that unite us - and divide us - from one another?