This Maine Speaks event with Liam Riordan, Professor of History at the University of Maine, is presented by the Maine Humanities Council and the Belfast Free Library. The program will take place in the Abbott Room with a Zoom option.

Register for the Zoom link here.

This illustrated talk looks at the text of the Declaration of Independence  (“all men are created equal . . . with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”) and considers some of its late-eighteenth century context. This will set the stage for a discussion about the meaning of the Declaration’s political ideals as well as its more sordid qualities for US public life today.
Liam Riordan is a history professor at the University of Maine who specializes in the American Revolution. He is the co-editor of What We Know, What We Wish: Maine Statehood, Historical Commemoration, and the Urgency of Public History, forthcoming from UMass Press in June 2025.