Join us for a visit with the author of our "Weymouth Reads Together" book, Joyce Lee Malcolm. 

Weymouth Reads Together is a shared community experience around one book. This is our first “one book, one community” initiative specifically for Weymouth. Throughout these months, Tufts Library will host events for adults related to our chosen book, The Times That Try Men's Souls: the Adams, the Quincys, and the battle for Loyalty in the American Revolution. 

About the book: All wars are tragic, but the "revolutionary generation" paid an exceptionally personal price.  In this book, Malcolm masterfully traces the origins and experience of that division during the American Revolution—the growing political disagreements, the intransigence of colonial and government officials swelling into a flood of intolerance, intimidation and mob violence. In that tidal wave opportunities for reconciliation were lost. Those loyal to the royal government fled into exile and banishment, or stayed home to support British troops. Patriots risked everything in a fight they seemed destined to lose. Many people simply hoped against hope to get on with ordinary life in extraordinary times. The hidden cost of this war was families and dear friends split along party lines.

About the Author:  Professor Emerita Joyce Lee Malcolm is an historian and constitutional scholar active in the area of constitutional history, focusing on the development of individual rights in Great Britain and America. Professor Malcolm has written many books and articles on gun control, the Second Amendment, and individual rights. Her work was cited several times in the recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller.

Professor Malcolm has previously taught at Princeton University, Bentley College, Boston University, Northeastern University and Cambridge University. She was also a Senior Advisor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program, a Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, and is a Bye Fellow at Robinson College, Cambridge University. Joyce Lee Malcolm is a professor at George Mason University School of Law. She is the author of Guns and Violence; Peter’s War; To Keep and Bear Arms; and The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Book will be available for purchase courtesy of Storybook Cove, 775 Washington St, Hanover.