Michelle Wilde Anderson Wins the 2023 Zócalo Book Prize

The Fight to Save the Town Highlights the Work of Sewing Society Back Together

Michelle Wilde Anderson is the winner of the 2023 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize for The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America.

Zócalo awards the $10,000 prize annually to the nonfiction book that most enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion. Our 12 previous winners—a mix of distinguished historians, social scientists, journalists, and public thinkers—include Michael Ignatieff, Sherry Turkle, Jia Lynn Yang, and, most recently, Heather McGhee. Anderson is a professor of property, local government, and environmental justice at …

When Americans Feared an Invasion From Their Northern Border | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

When Americans Feared an Invasion From Their Northern Border

In the Late 19th Century, the French Canadians Who Came to Work in Cotton Mills Were Treated as ‘Pawns in a Catholic Plot’

In 1893, Clare de Graffenried, special agent of the United States Department of Labor, published an article in The Forum describing an invasion of America’s northeastern border. For 30 …

Rootlessness Can Be a Blessing

What I Learned From Coming ‘Home’ to Massachusetts After 19 Years Away

It’s been nearly a year since I arrived “home” in Massachusetts after being away for 19 years. But I’m not entirely certain that it really is home.

It does have an …