Former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon John Kelly speaks on the historical background that has led to and grounds the current situations in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon and the U.S.'s involvement in the Middle East. He looks at what possible courses the U.S. could take now.

Audio and video options are available.

Author Mark Kurlansky reviews the history of New York City, using the perspective of the wildlife that once lived in the area as a framing device—particularly that of the eastern oyster.

The lecture audio is available separately for download.

Author Zoe Trodd follows the history of protest literature in the United States, looking at its use in movements ranging from pre-Revolutionary War to the present day. The presentation also includes Adoyo Owuor reading the Emancipation Proclamation, Timothy Patrick McCarthy reading Eugene v. Debs Statement to the Court, John Stauffer displaying a collection of 20th-century protest photography, and Doric Wilson presenting excerpts from his play Street Theater.

An mp3 of the presentation may be downloaded.

Director of the Center for Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, Gary Okihiro, delivers the keynote speech for the opening ceremonies of Boston College's Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. He discusses the difficulty of establishing an identity as an Asian-Pacific American and the history of Asian-Pacific Americans and Asian immigration to the U.S.

Author and professor Howard Zinn and professor James Green look at the Chicago Haymarket Riot of May 1886, in which a bomb killed several policeman at a Chicago labor rally, and the resulting trial and executions. They also discuss the history of the working class in the U.S. generally.

From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History website:

"In this lecture, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, gives a brief and entertaining tour of African American athletes throughout American history. From Bill Richmond, a bare knuckles boxer in eighteenth century New York to the barn storming all-black baseball leagues of the late nineteenth century and finally to Jackie Robinson and Jesse Owens in the twentieth, Gates uncovers both well known and long forgotten figures who changed American sports both on and off the playing field."

From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History website:

"Has the idea of American exceptionalism hobbled the study of American history? NYU University Professor of the Humanities Thomas Bender argues that it has. A study of American history taking into account world events and viewpoints, he argues, would result in a more contextualized and cosmopolitan discipline, helping historians to better understand what happened in American history and why, but also what it means. Bender traces the study of history from the 'men of letters' historians of the nineteenth century to historians of the Cold War and the present day, explaining how calls for a more worldly American history curriculum have been rebuffed."

From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American history website:

"University of Maryland Distinguished University Professor Ira Berlin suggests that the unique circumstances of American slavery continue to shape the nation even today. Unlike most other slave-holding countries, the United States had a large indigenous slave population and one of the most stringent definitions of race—the '"one drop" rule'—in the world. The result is a society whose very fabric is bound up in the legacy of human bondage."