Tag Archives: Weekly History Seminar

Kinzer Kicks Off Fall Washington History Seminar

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Journalist-historian Stephen Kinzer will inaugurate the 2011-2012 Washington History Seminar Monday, September 12, with a presentation entitled “Iran 1953 and the Uses of Middle Eastern History.”

A professor at Boston University, Kinzer covered more than 50 countries on four continents in over 20 years as a correspondent for the New York Times. His books include Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds (2001) and All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (2003).  He will explore the lasting consequences of the 1953 British-American coup against Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh and their role in the upheaval now spreading throughout the Arab world.

Co-sponsored by the National History Center and the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, the weekly Washington History Seminar provides historical perspectives on current international and national affairs.  It meets every Monday during the academic year at 4 p.m. at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.  It is supported by a grant from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.  Future sessions are scheduled to include Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose on how wars end, historian Rashid Khalidi on Arab nationalism, and historian Hope M. Harrison on the contested legacy of the Berlin Wall.

To be added to the seminar’s e-mail announcement list, please contact National History Center Associate Director Marian J. Barber at mbarber@historians.org.

 

 

 

Paul Landau Discusses the End of Apartheid in South Africa

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In the last Washington History Seminar for the semester, Paul S. Landau, historian at the University of Maryland, will discuss “South Africa and the End of Apartheid” on Monday, May 2, 2011 at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

Upon his release from prison, Nelson Mandela led the crowd in a rousing chant of the old resistance phrase, “Come Back Africa.” Now, twenty years later, we may begin to ask what kind of Africa is coming back. The question can be addressed by looking beyond the struggle of the African National Congress to focus on ordinary people’s mobilizations in the past. A history of generational conflict, chiefship, and trans-ethnic solidarity continues to be felt in the present.

Paul S. Landau teaches history at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400–1948 (2010), and The Realm of the Word (1995). His current research focuses on the turn to violence in the 1960s in the history of the struggle against Apartheid.

To watch a video presentation of this seminar, please click here.

 

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (Federal Triangle Metro stop).

This is the last seminar for the semester.  The series will begin again Monday, September 12, 2011. Please check back with the Center to see the schedule.

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center and facilitates the understanding of contemporary affairs in light of historical knowledge of all times and places, and from multiple perspectives Click for the Spring 2011 schedule and topics, as well as links to videos of past presentations. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Don H. Doyle Explores the American International Civil War

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At the next Washington History Seminar, Don H. Doyle of the University of South Carolina will explore “America’s International Civil War” on Monday, April 25 at 4:00 pm at the Wilson Center.

While the military contest between North and South dragged on inconclusively over four years, an equally crucial contest of diplomacy, ideology, and propaganda was waged abroad. Powerful economic interests and anti-democratic sympathies favored the South. On the other hand there was a reservoir of popular good will toward the “Great Republic” and widespread antipathy toward human slavery. Each side sought to shape foreign debate over the “American Question.” The Union won only when it learned to align its cause with what foreigners understood to be an ongoing international struggle for liberty, equality, and self-government.

Don H. Doyle is the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. Among his publications are Secession as an International Phenomenon (2010); Nationalism in the New World, edited with Marco Pamplona (2006); Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (2002). Currently a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, he will be a Fellow at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina in the coming year.

To watch a video presentation of this seminar, please click here.

Reservations are requested because of limited seating.  To reserve a seat at the seminar, contact Miriam Cunningham at 202-544-2422 ext 103.  The seminar takes place at the Wilson Center, located in the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (Federal Triangle Metro stop).

The seminar is sponsored jointly by the National History Center (an initiative of the American Historical Association) and the Wilson Center and facilitates the understanding of contemporary affairs in light of historical knowledge of all times and places, and from multiple perspectives Click for the Spring 2011 schedule and topics, as well as links to videos of past presentations. The seminar is grateful for the support given by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.