The Charleston Gaillard Center, Buxton Books and Charleston Library Society will present "Democracy Then and Now: Jill Lepore" on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, at 6:30 p.m.
From the 2026 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of We the People comes an urgent account of how rule by machine has ravaged the world in The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.
Jill Lepore is an international bestselling author, American historian and journalist who currently serves as the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History and professor of law at Harvard University. She has also been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 2005.
A wide-ranging and prolific essayist, Lepore writes about American history, law, literature and politics. Much of her scholarship explores absences and asymmetries in the historical record, with a particular emphasis on the history and technology of evidence.
In a year marked by the nation’s 250th anniversary, Lepore will visit Charleston as part of a limited number of appearances to discuss her new book and share her insights into the origins of modern civilization and the rise of automated democracy in the name of progress, culminating in the emergence of artificial intelligence.
Lepore will be in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Mother Emanuel and journalist Kevin Sack, Lepore examines our future through the lens of our past.
Tickets go on sale Thursday, June 18, at 11 a.m. ET at gaillardcenter.org.