Jamestown vs. Plymouth: America's Historical Amnesia
Professor Karen Ordahl Kupperman and historian Walter W. Woodward examine the history of the Jamestown colony in-depth, focusing on the personalities involved, including John Smith.
Professor Karen Ordahl Kupperman and historian Walter W. Woodward examine the history of the Jamestown colony in-depth, focusing on the personalities involved, including John Smith.
Filmmaker George Stevens, Jr., introduces and discusses D-Day to Berlin, the Emmy Award-winning documentary he made using color footage that his father, director George Stevens, filmed across Europe at the end of World War II. In 1943, Stevens, Sr., was assigned to follow the invasion of Normandy with the 6th Army for the purpose of recording their operations for army archives; the footage used to make up D-Day to Berlin was discovered after his death and follows Stevens and his crew as they follow the Allied Army.
Audio and video options are available.
Filmmaker Austin Hoyt answers questions on his new documentary, American Experience: Victory in the Pacific, which examines the final year of World War II in the Pacific, including the rationale for using the atomic bomb, and features firsthand recollections of both American and Japanese civilians and soldiers. The presentation includes a collage of audio and visual clips from the film.
Audio and video options are available.
Professor Anouar Majid covers the history of U.S./Islam cultural conflict, very generally. His presentation is followed by a question-and-answer session.
Professor Seth Jacobs traces his research into the history of the Vietnam War and the discoveries that he incorporated into his book America's Miracle Man in Viet Nam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and US Intervention in Southeast Asia. Jacobs argues that a midcentury religious revival in America, as well as policymakers' racist perceptions of Asians, led the United States to support the disastrous, autocratic Diem regime in South Vietnam, when other candidates for U.S. support existed.
Professors Seth Jacobs and Franziska Seraphim lecture on America's strategy in the Pacific during World War II, and how Americans perceived the Japanese enemy. They discusses America's war crimes against the Japanese, anti-Japanese propaganda, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Former JFK advisor and historian Arthur Schlesinger, journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran political analyst and former Nixon staffer Kevin Phillips explore the varying legacies of the United State's wartime presidents.
A panel of scholars responds to the second part of the PBS miniseries Slavery and the Making of America, which focuses on the Northeast, and includes the story of Mum Bett, who sued for her freedom in Massachusetts and whose victory led to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783.
Director of the Massachusetts Historical Society William Fowler follows the history of the French and Indian War, emphasizing its importance as a turning point in U.S. history that remains little taught and little known popularly.
Author Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Sea of Glory, describes the U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842, in which six ships of explorers and scientists, commanded by Charles Wilkes, set out to explore the Pacific Ocean and eventually discovered Antarctica. Philbrick also covers the story of the whaling ship Essex's shipwreck and related shipwrecks, to lead into the story of the Exploring Expedition