Pursuits of Knowledge: Beverly Gage on “This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip through U.S. History”

Join us for our ongoing Pursuits of Knowledge series exploring the enduring legacy of curiosity, innovation, and learning inspired by Thomas Jefferson, and the people and paths that created the United States.

• Location: Monticello's Howard and Abby Milstein Theater at Monticello's visitor center
• Seating opens at 5:30pm and the program begins promptly at 6pm.
• Meet the author and book signing available after the program.
• Complimentary parking is available at the David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center
• The Monticello Shop will be open before and after the program - merchandise, snacks, and beverages will be available for purchase.

About the Book

America’s getting old. It’s soon to celebrate its 250th birthday. It’s getting harder and harder for its citizens to find anything to agree on, even the nation’s history. But it’s still possible to get out there and see the American past for yourself. And it’s a lot more interesting – and colourful – than any tired story of manifest destiny you’ve heard.

Ride along with award-winning Beverly Gage on an epic road trip, a drive through US history in thirteen places: dropping by museums, a nuclear silo and a sex commune on the way. From the Battle of Alamo to Richard Nixon in Disneyland, Gage dives into America’s messy contradictions and discovers a country we still can love.

About the Author

Beverly Gage is the John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History at Yale University. Her courses focus on 20th-century U.S. history. 

Her new book, This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip through U.S. History, will be published by Simon & Schuster in April 2026. The book offers an on-the-road, behind-the-steering-wheel retelling of 250 years of U.S. history, starting at Philadelphia’s Revolution-era historic sites and ending at Disneyland in the 20th-century California dream. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it makes the case for exploring–and reckoning with–all 250 years of American national history. It also has some fun along the way. 

She is currently at work on a biography of Ronald Reagan, with an emphasis on the ways that debates over communism and the Cold War shaped his life and politics. 

Her book G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, a biography of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography, the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History, and the Ellis W. Hawley Prize of the Organization of American Historians. G-Man was named a best book of 2022 by the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Publishers Weekly, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Smithsonian. 

Professor Gage is also the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror, which examined the history of terrorism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on the 1920 Wall Street bombing. In addition to her teaching and research, she writes for numerous journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, New York Times, and Washington Post. 

In 2009, Professor Gage received the Sarai Ribicoff Award for teaching excellence in Yale College. In 2015, she was elected to serve as the first chair of Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Senate. From 2017 to 2021, she served as director of Yale’s Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. 

With Professor Elizabeth Hinton, Professor Gage leads the Workshop in Modern U.S. History, a monthly speaker series for faculty and graduate students to discuss the latest scholarship in 20thcentury U.S. history. 

Professor Gage is a graduate of Yale University (1994, BA, American Studies) and Columbia University (2004, PhD, History).

About the Moderator

Niya Bates is a senior manager of preservation practice at the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund within the National Trust for Historic Preservation. At the Action Fund, she co-leads the Descendant and Family Stewardship Initiative. Niya is also a PhD candidate in History and African American Studies at Princeton University. She has a background in architectural history, historic preservation, and public history. Her academic research and expertise are on 19th and 20th century U.S. history, rural cultural landscapes, and global environmentalisms. Niya founded the Scuffletown Project to preserve rural African American culture and historic sites in central Virginia. In 2020, she co-founded the Descendants of Enslaved Communities of Virginia to bring together fellow descendants of people whose ancestors were enslaved at the University of Virginia and other sites of enslavement throughout the commonwealth. Bates formerly served as the director of the Getting Word African American Oral History Project at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello where she strengthened relationships with Monticello’s descendant community and expanded the archives by collecting their oral histories. 

Niya was born and raised in central Virginia descends from families who were enslaved in that area. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CBS, The Today Show, NBC, PBS News Hour, ESPN The Undefeated, and Black Perspectives. Bates has been a guest on several podcasts and streaming platforms, including Thomas Jefferson: A History Channel docuseries, Oprah's Book Club, Monty Don's American Gardens, NPR's All Things Considered, Sporkful with Dan Pashman, and the Following Harriet podcast.

Monticello gratefully acknowledges the partnership of More Perfect in our 250th anniversary initiatives.