Историк из Нью-Йорка выпустил книгу о том, что система американского правительства за два столетия не изменилась

Jared Goerke said he has spent his entire life preparing to write his first book, “A Republic, If You Can Keep It,” about the nation’s founders. Goerke, a Plainview native who said he does campaign finance work for candidates across the state, said he always had a passion for American history, fueled by his father’s own love for the study, and said the two have headed on road trips to visit national monuments for years. Goerke said his collection of historical stories has grown over the years through trips with his father and his college studies, and that they became the foundation for most of the book. “A lot of pictures [of historical letters] that I took in high school when I would go to a museum 15 years ago, those letters are now in the book because they just stuck with me,” Goerke said. “So it was never formal research until about a year ago. But that’s the beauty of history: I don’t need to be sitting down and reading a textbook. I can actually be exploring places.” Goerke has a master’s in Government and Politics from St. John’s University and attended the State University of New York College at Purchase, where he studied theater and history and received his bachelor’s. He said that while studying at Purchase, his first dream career was to be a Broadway producer. “The running gag was always going to be that [my friends] could perform because I’d find the money and put the show together,” Goerke said. “I did one off-Broadway show in college and decided it really wasn’t for me.” He said that after trying his hand at producing, he found that he loved history more. “A Republic, If You Can Keep It” is on pre-sale now, Goerke said, and costs $25 for a first edition copy. He said the book will be out officially sometime next year, coming out nearly a year after he started writing it. He said the book is split into three parts that explore the birth of the nation, follow the principles the nation was originally founded on through the Civil War to the Cold War, and reflect on Benjamin Franklin’s lasting challenge: “A republic, if you can keep it.” He said he wrote the book for an audience that casually enjoys history, and that he creates a historical depiction of the United States by weaving together historical documents and letters, intending to let readers decide how they feel about how the nation was founded and by whom. He said that while reading a letter John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, he realized that nothing in government has changed since the nation was founded. “I must have read this letter straight through four or five times in one sitting, like ‘Oh my god nothing’s changed,’ and it sort of evolved the way the book is written,” Goerke said. “I started writing the book, realizing that the only things that have changed are the players, but the system itself hasn’t changed.”