The author ZZ Packer RI '15 reads an excerpt from her novel-in-progress, titled "The Thousands," which chronicles the lives of several families—black, white, and Native American—shortly after the Civil War, through Reconstruction and the "Indian Campaigns" in the Southwest.

Packer's reading and remarks are followed by a discussion with Walter Johnson RI '11, the Winthrop Professor of History and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.