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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

Funding provided by:

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

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.

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Atlanta History Center
Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson

Tue, Jun 23, 2009

Writer David O. Stewart delves into his latest work, *Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy*. The chronicle traces the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson to its roots in the social and political revolutions that rocked the south with the end of slavery and the Civil War. Stewart is also the bestselling writer of *The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution*.

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Atlanta History Center
Upton's Regulars: The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War

Sun, Jul 12, 2009

Salvatore G. Cilella, Jr. discusses his book, *Upton's Regulars: The 121st New York Infantry in the Civil War*. This is the first comprehensive history of the regiment in nearly ninety years. His talk begins by describing the memorial dedicated to this group of heroic "band of brothers."

Forum Network

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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.

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Atlanta History Center
Taylor Branch: The Clinton Tapes

Tue, Oct 13, 2009

Taylor Branch talks about his book, *The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President*, an account of President Bill Clinton's confidential diary project, aimed at preserving the fullest record of his administration. The book is based on 78 diary sessions between 1993 and 2001.

Forum Network

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Atlanta History Center
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

Tue, Jun 9, 2009

Liaquat Ahamed discusses his book, *Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World*, and covers the 2009 financial crisis.

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Atlanta History Center
The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta

Wed, Aug 19, 2009

Reporter Marc Wortman depicts Atlanta's siege and fall in *The Bonfire*, a narrative history told through the eyes of Confederate and Union participants. The only American city to have been besieged and destroyed, Atlanta’s destruction during the Civil War is an iconic moment in American history.

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Atlanta History Center
James Bradley: The Imperial Cruise

Wed, Dec 9, 2009

Writer James Bradley discusses his new book, *The Imperial Cruise: A True Story of Empire and War*. It's the true story of a 1905 cruise arranged by President Teddy Roosevelt sending Secretary of War William Taft, his gun-toting daughter Alice, and a group of congressmen on a mission to Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. There they would quietly forge a series of agreements that divided up Asia.

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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.

Civil Rights Movement Series

Partner:

Atlanta History Center
Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Became Mark Twain

Tue, Apr 13, 2010

Roy Morris, Jr. discusses his new book, *Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Became Mark Twain*. Mark Twain is arguably the most famous and influential writer in American history. His legacy is defined by *The Adventures of Tom Sawyer* and *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*. Little is known, however, about the crucial years during which Samuel Clemens transformed himself into the beloved American writer we celebrate today as Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens traveled by stagecoach to the Wild West in 1861 as an ex-Confederate guerilla and unemployed riverboat pilot, and returned six years later as Mark Twain. *Lighting Out for the Territory* tells how Samuel Clemens reinvented himself, while evading Indians and gunslingers, failing as a miner, dodging duels, surfing in Hawaii, and more trouble along the way. Backed by solid scholarship, this is the first full-length study of Twain's life-changing time in the American West, where he began his writing career and shaped himself into an American favorite.

Forum Network

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Atlanta History Center