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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Atlanta History Center

Atlanta History Center, founded in 1926 as the Atlanta Historical Society, includes permanent and traveling exhibitions in the Atlanta History Museum, two historic houses (Tullie Smith Farm and Swan House mansion), archives/special libraries, and 33 acres of beautiful gardens and wooded trails. The Atlanta History Center offers historical experiences for all ages, integrating history, education and life enrichment programs.

http://www.AtlantaHistoryCenter.com

  • Einstein: His Life and Universe

    Wed, Apr 18, 2007
    Walter Isaacson, author of the mega-selling, acclaimed biography of Benjamin Franklin, discusses his latest work focused on the most influential scientist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein. This is the first full biography written about this great icon since all of his papers became available. Isaacson looks at his science, personal life, and politics, and attempts to explain how his mind worked, who the real Einstein was, and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center

  • Almost a Miracle: America's War of Independence

    Tue, Aug 7, 2007
    John Ferling discusses this chronicle of America's struggle for independence, an eight-year conflict filled with heroism, suffering, cowardice, betrayal, and fierce dedication. As Ferling demonstrates, it was a war that America came much closer to losing than is now usually remembered. General George Washington put it best when he said that the American victory was "little short of a standing miracle."
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center

  • Clinging to Mammy: Our Relationship with Slavery

    Sun, Oct 21, 2007
    Micki McElya, professor of American studies at the University of Alabama examines why we cling to the notion of "mammy." She argues that the figure of the loyal slave has played a powerful role in modern American politics and culture. Stories of faithful slaves expose the power and reach of the myth, not only in popular advertising, films, and literature about the South, but also in national monument proposals, child custody cases, New Negro activism, anti-lynching campaigns, and the civil rights movement. If we are to reckon with the continuing legacy of slavery in the United States, McElya argues, we must confront the depths of our desire for mammy and recognize its full racial implications.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center

  • Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War

    Wed, Oct 29, 2008
    Jacqueline Jones discusses her new work, *Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War*. The book is a panoramic portrait of the city of Savannah before, during, and after the Civil War, drawing on military records, diaries, letters, newspapers, and memoirs.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center

  • Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800

    Sun, Nov 11, 2007
    Edward J. Larson discusses his book, *A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign*, which tells the fascinating story behind the fierce election battle between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the first true campaign for the presidency and one that almost broke the back of our democracy. The election of 1800 ushered in the party system, drawing the lines of partisan battle that would reshape our politics, while also preserving the institution of democracy. Edward J. Larson holds the Darling chair in law at Pepperdine University and is the Russell professor of American history at the University of Georgia. He is the recipient of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in history for his book *Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion*.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center

  • History of the CIA

    Wed, May 28, 2008
    Tim Weiner discusses his new book, *Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA*. The agency's failures have handed us, in the words of President Eisenhower “a legacy of ashes.” *Legacy of Ashes* is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including 10 Directors of Central Intelligence. Tim Weiner is a reporter for *The New York Times*. He has written on American intelligence for 20 years, and won the Pulitzer Prize for his work on secret national security programs. He has traveled to Afghanistan and other nations to investigate CIA covert operations firsthand. This is his third book.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center

  • Spartacus: The Man and the Myth

    Wed, Mar 25, 2009
    Barry Strauss talks about his new book, *The Spartacus War*, the real story of the Hollywood hero and revolutionary icon. Strauss depicts a Spartacus with parallels of insurgency and counter-insurgency between then and president-day wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center

  • Sam Richards' Civil War Diary

    Sun, Jul 12, 2009
    Georgia State University professor Wendy Hamand Venet discusses her book, *Sam Richards's Civil War Diary: A Chronicle of the Atlanta Home Front*. Richards' diary includes the period from October 1860 to August 1865. His observations cover the Union bombardment of Atlanta, the evacuation of Confederate forces, and the entry of the Union Army into the city.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center
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    Seth Grahame-Smith: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

    Wed, Mar 17, 2010
    Seth Grahame-Smith discusses his book, *Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter*. While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for reuniting the North with the South and abolishing slavery from our country, no one has ever known about his valiant fight against the forces of the undead. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith, author of the bestselling novel *Pride and Prejudice and Zombies*, stumbled upon *The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln*, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years. Using the journal as his guide, Grahame-Smith has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time - all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War, and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center

  • Theda Perdue: Race and the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition of 1895

    Wed, Mar 24, 2010
    Theda Perdue, Professor of Southern Culture at the University of North Carolina, discusses her book *Race and the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition of 1895*. The book examines the world's fair held in Atlanta, where white organizers - in order to attract business to the area - hoped to demonstrate they had solved problems of race in the city. The exposition featured American Indians, African Americans, and other racial, ethnic, and gender communities as part of the event's installations. Perdue finds that this turn-of-the-century performance of race played out in surprising ways, particularly in terms of the voice this event gave to the minorities who took part.
    Forum Network
    Civil Rights Movement Series
    Partner:
    Atlanta History Center
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