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.

Scholar Emmanuel M. Obiechina talks about his research into the recorded life stories of Africans in the U.S. and England in the 18th and 19th centuries. He focuses on relating these narratives to African literature and African history.

Video and audio options are available.

Scholar Emmanuel M. Obiechina talks about his research into the recorded life stories of Africans in the U.S. and England in the 18th and 19th centuries. He focuses on relating these narratives to African literature and African history.

Scholar Emmanuel M. Obiechina talks about his research into the recorded life stories of Africans in the U.S. and England in the 18th and 19th centuries. He focuses on relating these narratives to African literature and African history.

Video and audio options are available.

Two scholars present papers on the history of slavery, the slave trade, and African-American life in New England. The papers are "Creoles and Colonization: African Colonization Movements in Rhode Island and Nova Scotia in the Age of the American Revolution" and "William Lanson and the Vagaries of Early Free Black Life in New Haven, Connecticut, 1800-1831."

Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Du Bois Institute at Harvard, discusses the African and African-American experience from W.E.B. Du Bois to John Coltrane in a comprehensive study, with an emphasis on Du Bois's concept of the "Encyclopedia Africana"—an encyclopedia of all Black culture and history—as a weapon against racism.

Professor and author Simon Schama discusses the escape of many slaves to join the British during the Revolutionary War, in response to offers of freedom for service to Britain. He continues on to look at what happened to these men and women after Britain's defeat.

Professor and author Michael Oren looks at the history of relations between the U.S. and the Middle East, beginning in 1785 with the Barbary Wars and continuing to the present day.

The lecture audio is also available as a mp3 file.

Professor Eric Foner argues that the idea of sending African American slaves to colonize Africa (an idea which Abraham Lincoln at times embraced) was part of the larger idea of emancipation for American slaves, but it did not allow its supporters to consider how freed slaves might become part of American society. It was Lincoln's consideration of this very issue, Foner says, that distinguishes him from other advocates of emancipation.