Pohick book talk: Educating a Nation, with George Oberle

With the author of "Creating an Informed Citizenry: Knowledge and Democracy in the Early American Republic"

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 7:00 PM EDT

How should a republic educate its constituents? That's the question addressed by CML Director, Library Historian and Professor George Oberle in his new book, Creating an Informed Citizenry: Knowledge and Democracy in the Early American Republic. Oberle will be discussing the book at Pohick Regional Library, copies of which will be available for purchase and author signing. 

From George Washington's drive for a national university to new "knowledge institutions," like the Smithsonian and learned societies, U.S. elites debated the best routes to an informed citizenry, the distribution and meanings of knowledge, and the role of expertise—questions still provocative today.

The talk is presented by Friends of the Pohick Regional Library as part of the 2026 Fall for the Book Festival.