This lecture by Dr. James E. Lewis, Jr. was presented by the Clements Library to highlight the release of Lewis’ book, “The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis” (Princeton University Press, 2017). Lewis, a professor of History at Kalamazoo College, examines how rumors and reports of Aaron Burr's activities in the trans-Appalachian West in 1805 and 1806 produced a sense of crisis that was broadly held across the new nation. He discusses the various political and cultural forces that shaped how men and women at the time turned vague and often conflicting accounts into enough certainty to act.