This year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of what George Washington called this American “experiment.”
One thing I have learned since immigrating to this country nine years ago is that its history is composed of a multiplicity of histories. To give just one example, the popular perception of American history is one of east to west expansion from the British colonies. But there was another axis of colonial expansion along a north-south axis — south down the St. Lawrence and north up the Mississippi — which was carried out by Frenchmen, and the lands we now know as Minnesota were the hinge of this. This is why, unlike the east coast states with their British origins and British place names, we have Mille Lacs, Lac qui Parle, Grand Marais, and all the rest.
This is why studying the history of the states is a good way to study the history of the United States. We are all part of the same country, but we all have a slightly different perspective on the great events and movements of American history. The history of Florida and Minnesota are very different, and to the extent that the past shapes the present — not a small extent — this will explain some of the differences between Florida and Minnesota which we see today.
I hope you will get some sense of all this from our new book “Star of the North: Essays in Minnesota History,” which we published this week. It collects essays I’ve written for our magazine, Thinking Minnesota, and a few other pieces, to mark the birthday of our country.
When Winston Churchill published “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples,” a critic sniffed that it should have been titled “Things in history that interested me.” This book is not a comprehensive history of our state, but you can think of it as “Things in Minnesota’s history that interested me.” These essays take us from the steaming jungles of Guadalcanal to the high school in Ely and from the birth of our state to the 2020 presidential election. You will encounter some of the remarkable people who have built this remarkable state and this remarkable country. I hope they interest you, too.
