Program date: September 13, 2023
Speakers: Jeffrey Toobin and Don Carleton
Legal scholar and New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin discusses his latest book, Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism. Based on extensive research in the Briscoe Center’s Stephen Jones Oklahoma City Bombing Archive, Homegrown is an outstanding example of how our collections can be used to generate new scholarship.
According to Toobin, “Two decades ago, Stephen Jones, McVeigh’s lead attorney, donated his entire file on the case, including records of all his interviews with McVeigh, to the Briscoe Center at the University of Texas. It’s 635 boxes, about a million documents, and almost no one had looked at them. I did.” The book chronicles the dramatic history and profound legacy of Timothy McVeigh, and argues that McVeigh’s principles and tactics have flourished in the decades since his death in 2001, reaching an apotheosis on January 6 when hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol.
