“Have we been here before?" As masked ICE agents battle protestors in the streets and arrest people by the tens of thousands, it seems to many Americans something unprecedented. 

But is it? Berkeley author Adam Hochschild will give an illustrated talk about the subject of his prizewinning book, American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, which describes a similar period just over a hundred years ago. Then, too, the country saw violence in the streets, mass arrests, and politicians promising to deport "aliens" by the millions. There are eerie echoes today of what the country went through then.

About the Speaker 

Adam Hochschild writes frequently about issues of human rights and social justice. The latest of his 11 books is American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis. His King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as was To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918. His Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the PEN USA Literary Award. He is a three-time winner of the Gold Medal for Nonfiction of the California Book Awards. His reporting from five continents has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and many other magazines. He teaches at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.