Renegade History of the United States Tuesday September 28, 7PM Queens College Rosenthal Library -- Auditorium (Rm 230)

The accomplished social historian and cultural critical Thaddeus Russell will present his new book, A RENEGADE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES at Queens College (CUNY) on September 28th in the Rosenthal Library Auditorium. Russell argues that the freedoms we cherish today were won not by “good Americans” but by the people who lived outside “respectable” society. American history was driven by clashes between those interested in preserving social order and those more interested in pursuing their own desires—the “decent” versus the “degenerate,” the moral versus the immoral, “good citizens” versus the “bad.” The more that “bad” people existed, resisted, and won, the greater our common good.

Russell’s ideas and teaching style have made him the immensely popular “badass professor” at three universities, where the enthusiasm of his students has been met with consternation – and occasional outrage – from his more straight-laced colleagues. At Columbia, his lectures that became the basis for A RENEGADE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES tripled the size of the American history survey course but were attacked by eminent professors as being “improper” and “dangerous.”

Written in the spirit of Howard Zinn's revisionist classic, A People's History of the United States, the new, alternative history revealed in A RENEGADE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES shows that drunkards, laggards, prostitutes, and immigrants were the real heroes of the American Revolution. With chapters like "How Juvenile Delinquents Won the Cold War", "The Jew Was a Negro", "Whores and the Origins of Women's Liberation" and "How Gangsters Made America a Better Place", the book promises to be as controversial as it is incendiary.

Admission: $10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds Buy Tickets: http://renegadehistory.info Directions: http://bk.ly/te7