Friday, June 18th, 2010
A brief sketch of each of the 13 Colonies (Lazar’s Power Point). This lecture is more summative than analytical. But there is a lot of useful information.
18th Century Colonial Society & Culture Areas of focus are: Demography, Commerce, Religion, Education, Press, Politics & Philosophy
Settlements Across Seas; The Reasons, The Failures & a Success (1520-1624) (Conlin Ch 2)
From America Past and Present (Divine, et al.)
Posted in USH: Colonial Era | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
The Green Movement’s bloody street protests may not have toppled Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—but they will.
An argument worth reading (from Newsweek)
Posted in AP Iran | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
Americans have lost their commitment to shared sacrifice. This author suggests that Americans should re-read the Gettysburg Address.
Posted in USH: Civil War | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
A group of young American radicals announced their intention to overthrow the U.S. government. In ‘The Weather Underground’, former Underground members, including Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, David Gilbert and Brian Flanagan, speak publicly about the idealistic passion that drove them to “bring the war home” and the trajectory that placed them on the FBI’s most wanted list. Fueled by outrage over racism and the Vietnam War, the Weather Underground waged a low-level war against the U.S. government through much of the 1970s–bombing targets across the country that they considered emblematic of the real violence that the U.S. was wreaking throughout the world. Ultimately, the group’s carefully organized clandestine network managed to successfully evade one of the largest manhunts in FBI history, yet the group’s members would reemerge to life in a country that was dramatically different than the one they had hoped their efforts would inspire. Extensive archival material, including, photographs, film footage and FBI documents are interwoven with modern-day interviews to trace the group’s path, from its pitched battles with police on Chicago’s streets, to its bombing of the U.S. Capitol, to its successful endeavor breaking acid-guru Timothy Leary out of prison. The film explores the Weathermen in the context of other social movements of the time and features interviews with former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panthers. It also examines the U.S. government’s suppression of dissent in the 1960s and 1970s. Looking back at their years underground, the former members paint a compelling portrait of troubled times, revolutionary times, and the forces that drove their resistance.
A well-constructed and reasonably well-rounded documentary about the Underground
Posted in USH: Justice Movements of the 60s and 70s | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
A conundrum: the Islamic Republic of Iran, no friend of Western-style liberty, somehow nurtured (well, permitted) the great humanist cinema of the 90s. We’ll let the political scientists explain that one, and just note that men like Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami have directed on their own, and encouraged in others, films whose stripped-down, but never simple, artistry touches souls around the world. The stories are often about children —poor ones, blind or lame ones —who fight long odds not to triumph but simply to survive.
Posted in AP Iran | No Comments »