An Evening with Nathaniel Philbrick | The Rush

In-person

The History Book Festival, Lewes Public Library, and Browseabout Books are pleased to present this special evening with Nathaniel Philbrick, author of The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World, in observance of America250.

A ticket is required to attend this event. Each $44 ticket includes one general admission seat and a hardcover copy of The Rush signed by Nathaniel Philbrick. PLEASE NOTE:

The event takes place at Cape Henlopen High School Theatre (1250 Kings Highway, Lewes, DE).
Reservations are limited and nonrefundable (instructions to claim signed books for those unable to attend provided via email before and after the event).
Attendees check in by last name, so no physical tickets are required.
A portion of the proceeds of this event benefit the History Book Festival and the Lewes Public Library.
Questions about the event and tickets should be directed to the History Book Festival.

National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Nathaniel Philbrick reveals how California’s Gold Rush forged the modern United States—and lit the long fuse to civil war. In January 1848, a carpenter spotted flecks of gold in a shallow stream at Sutter’s Mill in California, triggering the greatest voluntary migration in U.S. history, as hundreds of thousands raced west in pursuit of sudden wealth, reinvention, and power. In The Rush, Nathaniel Philbrick transforms the Gold Rush from a tale of sudden riches into the origin story of America’s modern contradictions—capital consolidated at dizzying speed, democracy in thrall to private power, xenophobia weaponized in the name of liberty—and a stubborn belief in the American experiment that refuses to die. This is the story of a nation tearing at the seams and a republic tested by its own ideals. Not until a year after the outbreak of the Civil War, when President Lincoln signed legislation that would unite the nation east to west by building a transcontinental railroad, was California’s loyalty secured.

Philbrick follows the gold as it moves from riverbed to counting house to the halls of power, revealing how vigilantism hardened into law and how debates over slavery in the West tipped the balance in Washington. The result is a clear, human story of how a scramble for wealth reshaped ideas of freedom, labor, and belonging—and how California's rise helped push a fractured nation toward war. The Rush is alive with characters whose choices still reverberate: a searing, panoramic epic that captures both the fury and the promise of America.

Nathaniel Philbrick is the author of In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award; Mayflower, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Valiant Ambition, winner of the George Washington Prize; Bunker Hill, winner of the New England Book Award; Travels with George; Away Off Shore; Second Wind; Sea of Glory; and The Last Stand.

PURCHASE YOUR TICKET.

This collaborative program by the Lewes Public Library, History Book Festival, and Browseabout Books is part of a series in observation of America250, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, marking America’s Semiquincentennial.