“America at 250: A View from Home,” April 17 America at 250 Lecture with Kinder Institute Director Jay Sexton

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For the penultimate lecture in our Spring 2026 series exploring the global significance of the semiquincentenial anniversary of the US, Kinder Institute Director Jay Sexton will look outward from the Kansas-Missouri border, considering how the violent, Civil War-era history of the region, as well as the collective memory of said history, speaks to the evolution of American constitutional democracy from the colonial frontier through the Cold War. The event will be held on Friday, April 17 in the ballroom at the Tiger Hotel, with Prof. Sexton’s talk starting at 5pm and a reception to follow. Anyone interested in attending can RSVP (recommended, but not required) using the link above.

“A View from the Bloody Borderland”

This essay explores the global arc of American constitutional democracy through the lens of the Kansas–Missouri borderlands, one of the most violently contested and symbolically potent regions in US history. Stretching from the colonial frontier to the Cold War, it traces how a backwater of the 18th century became a staging ground for westward expansion, a crucible of civil war, and eventually a core of American global power. Anchored in the region’s violent mid-19th century conflicts—“Bleeding Kansas,” guerrilla warfare, and the humanitarian catastrophe of General Order No. 11—the talk will show how memory of this anarchy gradually gave way to a more stable New Deal order, exemplified by pragmatic, if imperfect, leadership. Figures like Pershing, Truman, and Eisenhower grounded their internationalism in local experience, linking small towns to global projects of reconstruction, alliance, and deterrence. As the American semiquincentennial approaches, the region’s shifting political geography offers a compelling vantage point for reflecting on American democracy’s past, present, and future.

Professor of History, Rich and Nancy Kinder Chair in Constitutional Democracy, and Director of the Kinder Institute, Jay Sexton is most recently co-editor of Volume 2 of Cambridge University Press’ 2021 Cambridge History of America and the World and author of A Nation Forged by Crisis: A New American History (Basic Books, 2018)

The Spring 2026 America at 250: Global Perspectives Lecture Series is brought to you in partnership with the State Historical Society of Missouri