Description
This event, originally titled '250th Independence Day: America's Unfinished Revolution', took place on 7 June 2026. The information below is correct as of the publication date.
Bruno Maçães, Sarah Churchwell and Fredrik Logevall in conversation with Georgina Godwin.
As the United States approaches 250 years of independence, the idea of its revolution, once a radical experiment in liberty and democracy, invites renewed scrutiny. Is it a completed project, or an unfinished promise, continually reshaped by history, conflict, and imagination?
Bruno Maçães, known for his incisive analyses of global power and shifting world orders; Sarah Churchwell, whose work traces the cultural and ideological myths at the heart of America; Fredrik Logevall, a historian of U.S. foreign policy and its entanglements; brought their layered perspectives to this question at JLF 2026. In conversation with Georgina Godwin, they revisited the American Revolution as an ongoing narrative marked by contradictions and reinventions.
This event took place as part of JLF London 2026.
About JLF London:
JLF London returned to the British Library in 2026 for its 13th edition, with an exciting line-up of speakers and sessions. JLF London embodies the multi-faceted spirit of the mother festival - the iconic Jaipur Literature Festival, with its unique celebration of books and ideas, inclusiveness and sense of community. Like all JLF international editions, the London programme brings alive South Asia’s unique multilingual literary heritage and blends it with local literary highlights.
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Speaker Bios:
Bruno Maçães is a Senior Advisor at Flint Global in London, where he advises leading global companies on geopolitics and technology, and also serves as a foreign correspondent and columnist for the New Statesman. He is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and previously served as Portugal’s Secretary of State for European Affairs during the eurozone crisis. He has authored several books, including The Dawn of Eurasia, Belt and Road, History Has Begun, Geopolitics for the End Times, and World Builders, which argues that geopolitics is now a race to define reality itself.
Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Chair of Public Humanities at the University of London. Her most recent book is The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells (2022). Her journalism has been widely published, and she is an experienced broadcaster and presenter. She won the 2015 Eccles British Library Writer’s Award and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2021.
Fredrik Logevall is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of History and International Affairs at Harvard University. He is the author of JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956, which won the Elizabeth Longford Prize, was named Biography of the Year by The Times (UK), and was recognized as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Georgina Godwin is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. A distinguished broadcast journalist, she presents the author interview programme Meet the Writers as well as the current affairs show The Globalist on Monocle Radio. She also serves as the station’s Books Editor and chairs literary events worldwide. A founding member of Zimbabwe’s first independent radio station, she was later declared an “Enemy of the State” and exiled to London. Georgina Godwin also serves on the board of the charity English PEN.
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