Public | Jun, 30 2026 6:30PM - 8:45PM
We welcomed guests on Tuesday, June 30, for a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Beverly Gage about her recent book This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History. First Light Books co-founder Taylor Bruce moderated the conversation. The evening was hosted in partnership with First Light Books and the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin and was part of the LBJ Presidential Library’s series celebrating the new exhibit The American Experiment.
About the book
Ride along with Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Beverly Gage as she travels the country to see the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans learn—and fight—about our history. From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia to Disneyland and the California dream, This Land Is Your Land offers a guided tour of thirteen places and thirteen key moments that define America’s greatest successes and challenges.
The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaimed the liberty and equality of all human beings, but produced a country that often failed to agree upon—or live up to—those ideals. This Land Is Your Land is for everyone who wants to find that history—to experience it and confront it, to celebrate it and condemn it—in the places where it happened.
Gage shows that Americans can face their past and still love their country. Toss the book in the back seat—or listen on audio with the windows down—and join the journey.
About the speakers
Beverly Gage teaches American history at Yale. Her book G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the Bancroft Prize in American History, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography. She is also the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror, and writes for numerous journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Taylor Bruce is a writer, editor, entrepreneur, and bookshop owner based in Austin, Texas. He’s spent the past quarter-century exploring the boundaries of storytelling and place via media, publishing, brand content, and brick-and-mortar business. After a career in magazine journalism, Taylor created and launched the indie publishing brand Wildsam in 2012. The series of field guides reimagined the travel genre with deep literary soul and classic design. Wildsam built a cult following behind the brand’s comprehensive point of view, its evocative voice, and a who ’s-who lineup of cultural contributors. Wildsam published over 65 guides, selling over 1 million copies across 2,000 shops, hotels, museums, and national retailers. In 2022, Taylor sold Wildsam to the Fortune 500 company Camping World, where he led all media and publishing until 2025. Taylor has worked closely with 100+ emerging and iconic brands across adventure, fashion, hospitality, auto, and technology, to craft strategic connections to place. He serves as an advisor to Faherty Brand and is the co-founder of a bookshop-café concept called First Light.
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