Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. both argued that the proper foundation for civic education is the belief that America has a moral essence derived from the principles of […]
This seminar examines the American experience of World War I. The readings will engage participants in conversation on the rhetoric of making “the world safe for democracy”. We will look […]
What was the extraordinary partnership between George Washington and Alexander Hamilton? A wealthy Virginia planter and a brash immigrant from the Caribbean helped to win the Revolutionary War and establish […]
There has been a complex and ongoing struggle for women’s equality in the United States. We will explore how women have challenged legal, social, and economic barriers across nearly four […]
How did the alliances of World War II break down, and so quickly after 1945? How close were these alliances in the first place, and what differences existed between the United States and the Soviet Union that acted as wedges between these two nations and their respective allies? This seminar focuses on the ideas, events, […]
The global Seven Years’ War (known in America as the French and Indian War) caused Britain, France, and their allies to clash from 1754 to 1763. Although important in its own right, perhaps it is even more significant in that it reordered the world in ways that would prove consequential beyond anyone’s expectations. In colonial […]
Beginning with the upheavals of the 1960s, the United States saw a diverse set of groups pushing for social change. These included African Americans, Native Americans, women, and gays and […]
This seminar will focus on America’s westward expansion and its “Manifest Destiny” to expand from sea to shining sea. This seminar will consider the purposes for westward expansion, Jackson’s Indian Removal Policy and westward expansion’s impact on slavery. This program will be conducted as a discussion, utilizing primary source documents as the only readings, and […]
Great fortunes were made in the late 19th Century and with this growth of industrialism came a desire to expand markets. How did nationalism inform the pro-imperialist arguments of Theodore Roosevelt? Were these arguments consistent with American principles? What were the arguments against imperialism and protectionism? This seminar will analyze these questions and consider the […]
This seminar will examine how the Constitution seeks to create a limited government, and how that government is supposed to function within defined restraints. The complexity of defining such constraints […]
