Reliving the American Revolution: USA250 Anniversary Program Part 4

Film & Lecture 4: Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 6:30 to 8:00pm; the Salt Lake City Public Library’s Nancy Tessman Auditorium, 210 East 400 South, Salt Lake City, UT. Parking at the Salt Lake Public Library is free with validation. Screening of the film Man Without a Country (Warner Bro. film short, 1937; nominated for an Academy Award) with an introduction by film historian Dr. James V. D’Arc (retired, BYU). In a series featuring great heroes and momentous events, this film stands apart. Its main character is a traitor to his country. He may seem an odd choice, but in an era of nation-building it is as important to have villains as it is to have heroes. And loyalty to country is an especially charged subject in an era of revolutionary change, when everyone’s loyalties were suspect. Let’s talk about the bad guys of the revolutionary era: they deserve some love as well. Who doesn’t love a good traitor? Historian Eric Hinderaker is Distinguished Professor of History and department chair at the University of Utah, where he has taught early American history for 35 years. Among other books, he is co-author, with Rebecca Horn, of The Americas: A New Interpretive History, which will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in2027. He is the author of Boston’s Massacre (Harvard, 2017), The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery (Harvard, 2010) and Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673-1800 (Cambridge, 1997). He is also co-author, with Rebecca Edwards and Robert Self, of the US History survey text America’s History, 11th ed. (Bedford Freeman Worth, 2025).