History   

This is the fourth class in a series describing events that help to explain today’s America. Learn how the Democratic Party turned to activism and civil rights advocacy. Witness the complete reversal of the Republican Party from its founding principles of equality to one that realigns itself geographically with the South and ideologically with states’ rights and white, male supremacy. Explore how both parties embrace neoliberal ideology to diminish New Deal policies and culture. Two historically reminiscent movements conflict: The Civil Rights movement (called the Second Reconstruction) and a neoliberal movement fueled by anti-communism, white, male supremacy and unlimited accumulation of wealth for the few. We will understand what MAGA is and how to address the issues it poses. 

NOTE: Attendance at prior courses in the series is not necessary. The course will have recommended readings from “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past,” edited by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, Basic Books (2022).

This is the foundation course for four courses of history that describe how current America was shaped. Two key events are covered: the idealistic founding of the Republican Party and Reconstruction that it created. After the Civil War, formerly enslaved people, women, abolitionists and radical Republicans courageously fought to create an interracial, nonpatriarchal democracy. In the face of a hegemonic white and male supremist strategy of misrepresentation and terror, they succeeded in creating the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the legal basis for citizenship, equality before the law, voting rights for all men regardless of race and abolishing slavery. This is their story and the consequences of their defeat. Required is an interest in how historical events shaped today’s America. 

NOTE: Strongly recommended reading before the class: “The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South” by Bruce Levine (2013). 

This is the foundation course for four courses of history that describe how current America was shaped. Two key events are covered: the idealistic founding of the Republican Party and Reconstruction that it created. After the Civil War, formerly enslaved people, women, abolitionists and radical Republicans courageously fought to create an interracial, nonpatriarchal democracy. In the face of a hegemonic white and male supremist strategy of misrepresentation and terror, they succeeded in creating the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the legal basis for citizenship, equality before the law, voting rights for all men regardless of race and abolishing slavery. This is their story and the consequences of their defeat. Required is an interest in how historical events shaped today’s America. 

NOTE: Strongly recommended reading before the class: “The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South” by Bruce Levine (2013). 

The American war of choice on Vietnam remains the most divisive conflict of the 20th century. This course will repeat in lecture and guided discussion the 1974 documentary “Hearts and Minds” by Peter Davis, taught at OLLI in Fall 2025. The course will also include new material from the 2017 PBS production of the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick film “The Vietnam War,” as well as poetry by Vietnam veteran W.D. Ehrhart from his website, wdehrhart.com. The course will include a discussion of the two equally disastrous 21st-century American wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and conclude with a speculative look at the still looming specter of war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

NOTE: Course materials will include disturbing subject matter: violence, racism and some brief sexual content. Member discretion is strongly advised.