Wednesday, June 27, 2018

1776: THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN by Serial Box and The Associated Press



Since January 24, Serial Box and The Associated Press have been publishing monthly installments of 1776: The World Turned Upside Down, a month by month immersive account of America in 1776 and the people and events that led to the founding of the United States, with commentary on its continued relevance to understanding America today by folks l like Cass Sunstein and Dr. Lyra D. Monteiro. 1776 is a monthly serial in text and enhanced audio on Serial Box and everywhere e-books are distributed, and January through June are already available.

1776
1776 is a 12-episode serial and will begin releasing on Jan 24, 2018. It will air monthly, with weekly supplemental commentary. 1776 can be found on Serial Box’s app and website and everywhere readers access e-books. More information can be found at https://www.serialbox.com/serials/1776.

To understand the current divisiveness in America, it is helpful to look closely at the initial uniting of America’s colonies, and how that foundation led us to where we are today. In 1976, using this logic, the AP commissioned three of its top journalists to write a month by month account of America in 1776 for the bicentennial. Originally, these accounts were collected in a beautiful, large format book for their member news organizations. Now, more than 40 years later, the entire collection will be made available to the general public in full for the first time in a variety of digital formats.

The AP is collaborating with Serial Box to significantly update the original text, which is unique in its focus on the lives of ordinary colonists and the more personal stories of now-famed figures, for example Thomas Paine’s failed career as a corset-maker prior to his writing of Common Sense. Through this series of 12 episodes released every month next year in ebook and audio, readers and listeners will learn first hand that revolutionary heroes don’t start out as legends and revolutions are not predestined to succeed. The courage, conviction, fallibility, and sometimes base motives of the people who invented America created the foundation for what our country is today. The series is intended to help us all explore the root causes of America’s greatest successes and failures, by examining how ordinary citizens - failed corset-makers, farmers, and high school dropouts - persuaded a disparate group of colonies to unite into one country and fight for a brand new idea: America.

Themes focussed on in 1776 include:

●      Economic inequality as a driver for unrest and political change
●      Instigators, volunteers and collective action
●      News, communication, and propaganda
●      The tension between cultural heritage versus assimilation and uniting a country of immigrants
●      Regional disputes and differences
●      A standing army vs a citizen army
●      Structural representation and the tension between states’ rights and federal government
●      Institutional inequality and oppression
●      The lives of ordinary people in the 1770s

Serial Box
Serial Box, which NPR recently called "the HBO of reading," produces original series that are released in ebook and audio episodes through their app(s), website, and third party retailers (iTunes, Amazon, etc). Readers/listeners pay $1.59 week by week or $18 in advance for a whole season (10-13 episodes). Serial Box brings the power of appointment-based consumption to reading for the first time since Charles Dickens & Little Nell. Visit serialbox.com for more information.

The Associated Press
The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world’s population sees news from AP.

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