Professor Alan Wolfe discusses the role of religion in U.S. politics, particularly in the present day. He argues that the "current Christian revival" in the U.S. is not having a negative, "fundamentalist" effect on U.S. government as a whole.

Professors Lawrence J. Vale, Thomas Kochan, and J. Phillip Thompson discuss issues related to the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and the recovery of New Orleans. Vale looks at past urban disasters and how these cities have changed and recovered; Kochan contrasts Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to Pearl Harbor with Bush's to Katrina; and Thompson looks at racial tension in New Orleans, prior to and after the hurricane.

In this lecture, historian Philip D. Morgan compares the Lowcountry and Chesapeake slave cultures and reveals much about the way of life of some of the earliest African Americans. Although South Carolina in the 18th century was built by slave labor, Virginia only began to "recruit" slaves in large numbers at the beginning of that century. Consequently, there were substantial differences in the black cultures that emerged in the two regions.

James Oakes of City University of New York examines Abraham Lincoln's views on race and slavery, including his reaction to the Dred Scott Decision. Oakes argues that Lincoln was a racial egalitarian.

Manisha Sinha of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, looks at the influence of black abolitionists on the policies and views of Abraham Lincoln, and the evolution of Lincoln's views on slavery and emancipation.

Reconstruction after the Civil War was America's first attempt at an interracial democracy. DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University Eric Foner explains why an understanding of Reconstruction—and why it failed—is critical to understanding the civil rights movement of the 20th century.

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland in 1820. After her escape to the North in 1849, she returned to the South more than a dozen times to ferry other slaves along the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his Harper's Ferry raid; and during the Civil War, Tubman served as a Union spy. In this lecture, historian Catherine Clinton details not only Tubman's life but also the quest to uncover new information on Tubman.

Richard Carwardine is Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University, author of Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, and winner of the 2004 Lincoln Book Prize. In this lecture, he discusses different aspects of Lincoln's life. Why is Lincoln a mythic figure? How early in his career did he develop his views against slavery? What role did religion play in his life? Professor Carwardine analyzes Lincoln's greatness as well as his humility.