Julie Carr -- "Mud, Blood, and Ghosts"

Julie Carr will speak about and sign her new book, Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West, on Thursday, June 8th at 6:30pm, at Boulder Bookstore.

About the Book:

Populism has become a global movement associated with nationalism and strong-man politicians, but its root causes remain elusive. Mud, Blood, and Ghosts exposes one deep root in the soil of the American Great Plains. Julie Carr traces her own family’s history through archival documents to draw connections between U.S. agrarian populism, spiritualism, and eugenics, helping readers to understand populism’s tendency toward racism and exclusion.

Carr follows the story of her great-grandfather Omer Madison Kem, three-term Populist representative from Nebraska, avid spiritualist, and committed eugenicist, to explore persistent themes in U.S. history: property, personhood, exclusion, and belonging. Carr connects Kem’s journey with that of America’s white establishment and its fury of nativism in the 1920s. Presenting crucial narratives of Indigenous resistance, interracial alliance and betrayal, radical feminism, lifelong hauntings, land policy, debt, shame, grief, and avarice from the Gilded Age through the Progressive Era, Carr asks whether we can embrace the Populists’ profound hopes for a just economy while rejecting the barriers they set up around who was considered fully human, fully worthy of this dreamed society.

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IMPORTANT TICKETING AND EVENT INFORMATION

*Tickets are $5 (plus a small processing fee).

*A coupon good for $5 off a copy of Mud, Blood, and Ghosts, or a purchase on the day of the event is included with your ticket. You will receive this coupon at the event.

*Please note: our events are held on the second floor. To request a reasonable accommodation or discuss your needs, contact BBSVirtualevents@gmail.com.

*After purchasing your tickets, send an email to bbsvirtualevents@gmail.com if you're a Readers Guild member and you'd like to reserve a seat at this event. Seats must be reserved before 5pm on the day of the event.

• Purchase Mud, Blood, and Ghosts HERE