The Gardiner Library Association will continue celebrating Maine’s bicentennial with a yearlong speaker series celebrating the history of the communities making up the Lower Kennebec Valley.

Liam Riordan will give a talk about “Maine Statehood and the Bicentennial: The View from the Lower Kennebec Valley” at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, at Gardiner Public Library, 152 Water St., in Gardiner.

Riordan, a University of Maine Professor of History, is an early American historian specializing in the broad Revolutionary era. He has been a member of the University of Maine faculty since 1997.

His illustrated presentation and discussion will explore the long statehood process in Maine that culminated in 1820 with separation from Massachusetts. This presentation will cover four broad themes spanning then and now: the “two Maines” and sharp partisan conflict; the explosive place of slavery relating to the Maine-Missouri Crisis; Wabanaki sovereignty; and the uncertain location and meaning of international borders.

For more information, call 582-3312.

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