Angela P. Dodson and Special Guests: We've Been Here Before
Author Angela Dodson and an all-star panel discuss how rebellion and activism have always sustained America, at the New York Society Library. Book launch event.
Why we picked this
Dodson's frame — that American stability has always depended on precisely the kind of organized disruption that gets called destabilizing — is a historical argument with obvious contemporary pressure. The panel format should generate real friction.
Angela P. Dodson spent decades as a journalist before turning to history, and We’ve Been Here Before: How Rebellion and Activism Have Always Sustained America reflects that background: deeply researched but structured as narrative, focused on the specific figures — the mavericks, rebels, outliers, and ordinary citizens who had extraordinary impact — rather than abstract forces.
Her argument is that the American social contract has never been self-sustaining; it has required continuous renegotiation through disruption, protest, and organized resistance, from the Revolutionary era to the present. The people who did that work, particularly women and people of color, tend to be written out of the history that subsequent generations inherit.
The book launches on June 9, the same day as this event. Dodson will be joined by a panel of guests at the New York Society Library, which has made American democratic history a centerpiece of its 2026 programming season around the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.