The Rise and Fall of Communism

Description

Communism was (and is) a major political movement of the 20th and 21st centuries. While Russia, its foremost promoter, has turned away from it, Communism is still said by China to be its political system and there are Communist outposts in North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba. Indeed, there remain advocates of Communism among the poor and some intellectuals to this day. One cannot understand world history since 1917 without a knowledge of what Communism promised and what it delivered.

This SDG will explore the history of Communism, including the thinkers who advocated Communism, the reasons that their advocacy resonated with leaders and the populace in many places, the Russian revolution, the spreading of Communism after World War II, the Chinese revolution, the revolts in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dismembering of the Soviet Union and the persistence of Communism in China. The emphasis will be on how Communism has been practiced, rather than the details of its theories. Among the questions we will address are the following: Why was the movement attractive to so many? What were its successes? What were its failures? Is Communism fatally internally inconsistent or at odds with human nature? Have its leaders ultimately been good for the movement or did they insure its downfall? Did those leaders practice Communism or simply use its rhetoric as an excuse for the exercise of power? Has the political system proposed by Marx ever been implemented? Was the Cold War—serious battling, threats and arms buildups between the West and Communist countries—inevitable? Is it likely that there will be a resurgence of Communist principles in developed or undeveloped countries in the future?

Our core book will be “The Rise and Fall of Communism” by Archie Brown. It provides comprehensive history along with perceptive comments. Of course, there are thousands of books and on-line articles on every aspect of Communism and its leaders.

Weekly Topics

1. Karl Marx, the Then Social Structure in Europe, Promotion of Communism before Russian Revolution, Appeal of Communism

2. Lenin, Application of Marx to Politics and the Russian Revolution

3. Communism in USSR and Elsewhere before World War II, Stalin, Purges, Soviet/Nazi Pace, World War II

4. Successful and Unsuccessful Efforts to Expand Communism in Europe Post World War II

5. Description of a Communist System, Distinctions between Communism and Socialism, Contradictions between Theory and Practice in USSR and Elsewhere

6. Asia: Mao and Chinese Revolution, Korea and Vietnam

7. Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela and Chile

8. Asia, including Korea and Vietnam

9. Cold War

10. Khrushchev, Changes in Communist Doctrines, Polish Resistance

11. Revolts in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, etc.

12. Gorbachev and Attempts at Reform

13. Adaptations in China, Policies in North Korea and Vietman

14. Fall of Berlin Wall, Dissolution of USSR, Choices of Former Soviet Republics, Current Status of Communist Parties throughout the World

15. Evaluation of Marxism, Communist Successes & Failures and Future of Communism

Bibliography

• Core Book: "The Rise and Fall of Communism" by Archie Brown

• In addition, there are countless books and essays on all aspects of Communism, the countries that revolted in reliance on Communist principles, the ways in which those countries dealt with Communism, the Cold War, the decline of Communism in Russia and Europe and the persistence of advocacy of Communism, including the following:

• Communism in the 21st Century by Shannon Brincat (2014)

• The New Communism by Bob Avakian (2016) This book and other books by Avakian advocate adoption of Communist principles

• A Practical Communism for the 21st Century by Luke Davies

• On My Country and the World by Mikahil Gorbachev (1999)

• Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959 by Samuel Farber (2011)

• Southeast Asia's Cold War by Ang Guan (2018)

• goodreads.com: Listing of many books on all aspects of China's revolution and history since 1949

The Innovators

Description

Silicon Valley Innovators has been a recent hot topic because of the contributions Companies, R&D Centers and Universities have made to advance technology. However, we must also remember that much of the early development occurred in Tech Hubs on the East Coast such a IBM in New York, DEC in Maynard, MA (along the famous Route 128), Control Data (Minneapolis) and Bell Labs in New Jersey. The development coming from this Tech Hub have changed our life's and lifestyle. Some for good, others more nefarious.

A confluence of people, Universities and entrepreneurial drive have made Silicon Valley (which includes essentially the entire West Coast and Austin, TX) have wrought a world wide change that has not been seen since the late Industrial Revolution.

Who are these people? What were their Visions? What makes a region so successful? Will it continue? All good topics for discussion since they have impacted us so significantly.

As part of the above question we should ask why the US is good at early development but manufacturing and further advancement are made in Asia?

Weekly Topics

1. Timeline of major discoveries and what is missing from the list.

2. Ada, Countess of Lovelace nee Byron.

3. The Computer - Early Development and the final ingredient.

4. Programming - From Ada, Turing and the many early women programmers to Microsoft and Apple.

5. The Transistor - Bell Labs and Fairchild.

6. The Microchip - Fairchild to Intel and TI.

7. Video Games - Early start in the US but what about Japan and Korea?

8. The Personal Computer - From Altair to IBM and DEC to HP, Xerox and Apple.

9. Software - From DOS to Windows and in-between.

10. On-Line - The Modem and the the AOL Free floppy disc or CD.

11. The Web - From Defense and Education to general use.

12. Ada Forever - Conclusion and future?

Bibliography

• The Innovators by Walter Isaacson - Simon and Schuster, 2014

• https://www.state.gov/policy-issues/science-technology-and-innovation/

• https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/americas-innovation-engine-slowing/614320/

• https://www.brookings.edu/research/technology-and-the-innovation-economy/

• https://issues.org/farrell-2/

• https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-08-08/us-returns-to-top-3-in-global-innovation-ranking

• https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/userfiles/file/reportpdf/GII-2014.pdf

African American Literature-Biography and Memoir

Description

America, has a tradition of black writers whose autobiographies and memoirs come to define their eras from the days of slavery until today. These are autobiographies that are also pieces of literature. We will enjoy them as literature and in the process come to understand the history and experience of Americans who are black.

Weekly Topics

• Week 1: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (1845), an influential piece of literature and the epitome of the antebellum fugitive slave narrative.

• Week 2: Up From Slavery (1900), by Booker T. Washington, offers readers insight into his life as a slave to his becoming president and founder of Tuskegee Institute. The book was a best-seller when published, and remained the most popular African American autobiography until that of Malcolm X.

• Week 3: The Big Sea (1926) [Parts I and II and the Postscript] by Langston Hughes recounts memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade--Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs in Harlem he was a rising young poet.

• Week 4: Crusade for Justice (1972, posthumously) by Ida B. Wells, the story of an incredibly courageous and outspoken black woman in the face of innumerable odds, a valuable contribution to the social history of the United States and to the literature of the women's movement as well."

• Week 5: Dust Tracks on a Road (1942) by Zora Neale Hurston [first half] Hurston describes her career as a writer during the Harlem Renaissance and her work as a cultural anthropologist.

• Week 6: Dust Tracks on a Road[second half]

• Week 7: Autobiography of Malcom X (1964) [first half]: explores the tragedies X endured as a child to his transcendence from a criminal to a world-renown religious leader and social activist.

• Week 8: Autobiography of Malcom X[second half]

• Week 9: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1969) a coming-of-age story that shows how strength of character and a love of literature can overcome racism and trauma.

• Week 10: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings [second half]

• Week 11: Buck, a Memoir (2013) [first half] by M.K. Asante is the story of a rebellious boy’s journey through the wilds of urban America [Philadelphia] and the shrapnel of a self-destructing family.

• Week 142 : Buck, a Memoir [second half]

• Week 13 : When They Call You a Terrorist (2020) [first half] by Patrisse Khan-Cullors is a powerful memoir of a Black woman raised in a poor area of Los Angeles who became a co-founder of Black Lives Matter movement.

• Week 14: When They Call You a Terrorist [second half]

Irving Berlin, His Life and Music

Description

“Irving Berlin (1888-1989) has no place in American music, he is American music,” wrote Jerome Kern about the composer of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band, “God Bless America,” and White Christmas.” In a career that spanned nine decades, Berlin wrote some 1500 tunes. James Kaplan’s new biography (2019) “Irving Berlin: New York Genius” captures Berlin as he grows up in New York City as a self -made man and as a witty, wily, tough Jewish immigrant. With this core book, that has excellent reviews from the New York Times, we will explore Irving Berlin’s life and music. What motivated his songs? How did his music change America?

Weekly Topics

1. Musical overview of Berlin’s work, New York City’s environment (1888 – 1898) and core book preface

2. Ch.1: The Fugitive

   Ch.2: I have Discovered a Great Kid

3. Ch.3: You can Never Tell Your Finish When You Start

   Ch.4: I Sweat Blood

4. Ch.5: At the Devil’s Ball

   Ch.6: Play a Simple Melody

5. Ch.7: I Wasn’t Much of a Soldier

   Ch.8: Work for yourself

6. Ch.9: What Shall I Do

   Ch.10: Always

7. Ch.11: Never Saw the Sun Shining so Bright

   Ch.12: Good God, Another Review

8. Ch.13: Before They Ask Us to Pay the Bill

   Ch.14: Write Hits Like Irving Berlin

9. Ch. 15: While the Storm Clouds Gather

   Ch.16: What is a War Song?

10. Ch. 17: This is the Army Mr. Jones

    Ch. 18: To War

11. Ch.19: And Back

    Ch. 20 There is America’s Folk Song Writer

12. Ch.21: I’ve Never Been in a Tougher Spot

    Ch.22: We’ll Never Get Off the Stage

13. Ch. 23: A worried Old Man on the Hill

    Ch.24: What Have You Written Lately?

14. Movie: “This is the Army” available on Amazon Prime

Bibliography

Kaplan, James, Irving Berlin: New York Genius 2019 Yale University Press

Movies About The Movies

Description

How do filmmakers portray themselves, their art, their business and their lives in their movies? Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic or poignant or frightening and sometimes sizzling with sex. How do filmmakers portray themselves, their art, their business and their lives in their movies? Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic or poignant or frightening and sometimes sizzling with sex.

This SDG will examine how filmmakers from different eras and countries utilize the various genres of cinema (drama, comedy, mystery, horror, animation and the musical) to depict their own unique perspective on the art and business of filmmaking. Among the issues we will consider are a film's narrative structure, its visuals, thematic content, the era when made, production history and its creative team. We will also factor in the topics of race and gender. As there is no textbook, members will be expected to research their chosen film and provide the group with a limited amount of recommended reading or viewing material.

All films are readily available from Amazon, Netflix and many can be taken out from a local library.

Weekly Topics

During the fourteen weeks we will view / discuss one film a week. (Pending availability) these films are :

• Show People, King Vidor, 1928 (silent)

• A Star is Born, William Wellman, 1937

• Sullivan Travels, Preston Sturges, 1941

• Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder, 1950

• Singing in the Rain, Stanley Donen / Gene Kelly. 1952

• Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers), Guru Dutt (India), 1959

• Peeping Tom, Michael Powell (Great Britain), 1960

• 8 ½, Federico Fellini (Italy), 1963

• Day for Night, François Truffaut (France), 1973

• The Front, Martin Ritt. 1976

• The Player, Robert Altman, 1992

• The Watermelon Woman, Cheryl Dunye, 1996

• Baadasssss!, Mario Van Peebles, 2006

• Hugo, Martin Scorsese. 2011

Possible alternatives if any of the above films are not available at the time of the SDG: Adaptation, Spike Jonze, 2002 or White Hunter, Black Heart, Clint Eastwood, 1990 or Millennium Actress, Satoshi Kon, 2001

Bibliography

There is no text. All films will be available to view on a streaming service such as Amazon or Netflix. The discussion leader for each film (with the assistance of the SDG leader) will be responsible for recommending a limited amount of relevant materials concerning the assigned film.

Los Angeles in the 60's

Description

Los Angeles in the sixties was a hot bed of political and social upheaval. The core book is entitled Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the 60's by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener which tells the compelling story of this important decade in Los Angeles history. The city was a launchpad for the Freedom Rides and the struggle for fair housing. The city's history includes the 1965 Watts rebellion and its repercussions, the development of the Black Muslims, Black Power, the Black Panther Party, US and the political competition and repression that followed. It is time to look at the Eldridge Cleaver for President campaign, the Peace and Freedom Party, and the struggle to "Free Angela Davis!" Let us not forget Tom Bradley's campaign for Mayor and the changes it brought to the political landscape. A movement to Ban the Bomb became a struggle to Stop the War, draft resistance and the war coming home. Chicano power arose and asserted itself in many forms including the Chicano Moratorium. Asian-Americans organized and made their presence known. L.A. was also a focus of the struggle by women in many forms and for gay liberation. It was a capital of California counterculture. What is a discussion of L.A. in the sixties without talking about KPFK , the L.A. Free Press, and the Free Clinic? It is time to look at this tumultuous decade as it played out in Los Angeles.

Weekly Topics

1. Introduction and Chapters 1-3. A Movement History; 1960 Setting the Agenda; A New Breed; Police Chief William Parker; L.A. to Mississippi-The Freedom Rides.

2. Chapters 4-7. The Black Muslims (1963); The United Civil Rights Movement (1963); The Beginning of the Backlash; The Repeal of Fair Housing (1968).

3. Chapters 8-11. Alternative Culture; Ban the Bomb-Stop the War-Women Strike for Peace; From Bach to "Tanya" KPFK Radio (1959-1974); L.A. Free Press (1964-70); Gay L.A. (1964-70).

4. Chapters 12-15. Catholic Power and Protest (1964-73); The Explosion; The Watts Uprising (August 1965); The McCone Commission (1965-66); The Watts Renaissance (1965-67).

5. Chapters 16-19. Black Power (1966); The Panthers and US (1967-68); Vietnam Comes Home; The Century City Police Riot (1967); Eldridge Cleaver for President (1967-68).

6. Chapters 20-22.. Draft Resistance (1967-69); The Great High School Rebellion; Riot Nights on the Sunset Strip (1966-68); The Blowouts (1966-68).

7. Chapters 23-25. Black High School Activists (1968-1969); There is Only the Gun; Bradley for Mayor (1969); The UCLA Murders (1968-69).

8. Chapters 26-28. Killing the Panthers (1969-70); Free Angela! (1969-72); Reigns of Repression; The Ash Grove and the Gusanos (1968-73).

9. Chapters 29-32. Valley State (1968-70); The Battle for the Last Poor Beach: Venice (1969); Generation Chicano (1969); The Chicano Moratorium (1970).

10. Chapters 33-36 and Epilogue. Other Liberations; The Many Faces of Women's Liberation (1967-74); The Free Clinic (1967-70); Asian American Radicalism (1969-74); L.A.'s Black Woodstock: Wattstax (1972); Sowing the Future.

Bibliography

Mike Davis and Jon Wiener, Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, New York and London, Verso. 2020.

Plutarch's "Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans"

Description

One of the most important surviving texts from the Greco-Roman world is Plutarch’s Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans, which has provided material about Greek and Roman leaders to writers and thinkers from Shakespeare to the present day. Plutarch was born in Greece about 50 c.e. and died about 120 c.e. He was devoted to antiquities and traditional religion, and served for decades as a priest at Delphi.

Among his many books, Plutarch is best known for his Lives which has been at the center of European education for five centuries. He believed history should be studied for its ethical lessons, so he placed the lives of famous Greeks and Romans beside each other – like Demosthenes and Cicero – and then wrote a brief comparison of their virtues and vices. (Some of the lives and the comparisons are lost.) His book has been used since the Renaissance for moral instruction. The 1579 century English translation was used by Shakespeare as his source for his Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. Plutarch’s Lives became especially important for periods or personalities for which other historical sources are lacking. Hence he can almost be said to have “invented” in his Life of Antony the image of Cleopatra, later used so powerfully by Shakespeare.

This SDG will examine a selection of the Lives both for the historical content and the moral lessons Plutarch was trying to teach.

Weekly Topics

1. TWO EARLY ATHENIANS: Solon & Themistocles

2. TWO SUCCESSFUL LEADERS: Pericles & Fabius Maximus (and comparison)

3. TWO “TRAITORS”: Alcibiades & Coriolanus (and comparison)

4. TWO CONSERVATIVE POLITICIANS: Aristeides & Cato the Elder (and comparison)

5. TWO ROMAN REVOLUTIONARIES: Tiberius Gracchus & Gaius Gracchus

6. TWO ROMAN GENERALS: Marius & Sulla

7. TWO ROMAN TRIUMVIRS: Crassus & Pompey

8. TWO ORATORS: Demosthenes & Cicero (and comparison)

9. TWO GREAT GENERALS: Alexander the Great & Julius Caesar

10. TWO ROMAN “LOSERS”: Marcus Brutus & Marc Antony

Bibliography

General Histories for Background:

• Boardman, John et al. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World (Oxford, 2001). Selected passages

• Beard, Mary. S.P.Q.R. (New York, 2015) pp. 1-336

• Woolf, G. Rome: An Empire’s Story (Oxford, 2012). Pp. 1-145

Plutarch

• Lamberton, Robert Plutarch

• All Lives and comparisons on line: http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Plutarch.html

• All Lives and comparisons on line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Lives

• Plutarch Fall of the Roman Republic (Penguin): Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Cicero

• Plutarch Makers of Rome (Penguin): Coriolanus; Fabius; Marcellus; Cato the Elder; Tiberius Gracchus; Gaius Gracchus; Sertorius; Brutus; Mark Antony

• Plutarch Rise and Fall of Athens (Penguin): Theseus, Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, and Alcibiades, Lysander.

In the Marital Wilderness: Tales by John Cheever, Richard Yates & John Williams

Description

The years following World War II were decades of conjugal turmoil. Many women who managed to work and start careers during the war went back to being housewives. As their college attendance rates shot up, however, and as exposure to alternative life-styles increased, this period also became the gestation time for a new wave of the women's movement that began to crest in the late '60s and early '70s.

Our SDG concentrates on three authors who, while writing from a male perspective, capture some of the anguish experienced by conflicted women and daunted men. Philip Roth dubbed John Cheever (1912 - 1982) "an enchanted realist". Much the same can be said of Richard Yates (1926 - 1992), celebrated for Revolutionary Road (a novel made into a movie after his death, starring Kate Winslet) as well as for his lapidary short stories. While less well-known in his lifetime, John Williams (1922 -1994) achieved posthumous fame with the revival of Stoner, his one-of-a-kind tale of Midwestern melancholy.

"These stories," John Cheever wrote in the final collection of his own tales, "seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat." Variations on nostalgia in this vein can also be found in the work of Yates and Williams.

Another commonality is more subtle: all of our authors share a male sensibility keyed largely to a pre-'60s era, reflected in the stoicism and pathos of their tuning-fork prose. They all have a feel for what's askew behind the conformity and complacency of their contemporaries, including themselves. They all were alcoholics. They stumbled erratically through their relationships with women. Such themes provide the focus of our SDG.

Weekly Topics

• 1. Yates, Revolutionary Road, Part I, pp. 1 - 122

• 2. Yates, Revolutionary Road, Part II, pp. 123 - 222

• 3. Yates, Revolutionary Road, Part III, pp. 225 - end

• 4. Cheever, "The Enormous Radio" 9 pp. & "O Youth & Beauty" 16 pp. & "O City of Broken Dreams" 16 pp.

• 5. Cheever, "Torch Song" 15 pp. & "The Five-Forty-Eight" 12 pp. & "Country Husband" 22 pp.

• 6. Cheever, Stories, Cheever, "Goodbye, My Brother," 19 pp. & "The Wrysons," 6 pp. & "The Swimmer," 10 pp.

• 7. Williams, Stoner, Chapters 1 - 5, pp. 1 - 87.

• 8. Williams Stoner, Chapters 6 - 10, pp. 88 - 174.

• 9. Williams, Stoner, Chapter 11 - 15, pp. 175 - 275.

• 10. Richard Ford, "American Beauty" (c.1955) New York Times (April 9, 2000), 13pp.

• Stewart O'Nan, "The Lost World of Richard Yates" Boston Review (October 1, 1999), 27pp.

• Elizabeth Venant, "A Fresh Twist in the Road: For Novelist Richard Yates, a Specialist in Grim Irony, Late Fames's a Wicked Return," Los Angeles Times (July 9, 1989), 6 pp.

• Edmund White, "The Strange Charms of John Cheever," New York Review of Books (April 8, 2010), 9 pp.

• Morris Dickstein, "The Inner Lives of Men" [on Williams' Stoner], New York Times (June 17, 2007), 6 pp.

• Tim Kreider, "The Greatest American Novel You've Never Heard Of," [on Williams' Stoner] New Yorker (October 20, 2013), 7 pp.

• Lee Robson, "John Williams and the Canon That Might Have Been," New Yorker (March 11, 2019), 10 pp.

Bibliography

• John Cheever, The Stories of John Cheever (1978)

• John Williams, Stoner (1965)

• Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road (1961)

• Richard Ford, "American Beauty (1955)" New York Times (April 9, 2000) 13 pp. (available online)

• Stewart O'Nan, "The Lost World of Richard Yates," Boston Review (October 1, 1999), 27 pp. (available online)

• Peter Tonguette, "At Home on Revolutionary Road," First Things (April, 2021), 4 pp.

• Edmund White, "The Strange Charms of John Cheever," New York Review of Books (April 8, 2010), 9 pp. (available online)

• Tim Kreider, "The Greatest American Novel You've Never Heard Of," [on Williams' Stoner] New Yorker (October 20, 2013), 7 pp. (available online)

• Lee Robson, "John Williams and the Canon That Might Have Been," New Yorker (March 11, 2019), 10 pp. (available online)

• Morris Dickstein, "The Inner Lives of Men" [on Williams' Stoner], New York Times (June 17, 2007), 6 pp. (available online)

• Optional: The following literature is informative but not required. The biographies by Bailey are very readable. The letters of John Cheever are very frank. The biography of John Williams is worth browsing through.

• Blake Bailey, Cheever (Vintage, 2009), 784 pp.

• Blake Bailey, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates (Picador, 2013), 704 pp.

• Benjamin Cheever, ed., The Letters of John Cheever (Simon & Schuster, 1988).

• Charles Shields, The Man Who Wrote the Perfect Novel: John Williams, Stoner, and the Writing Life (University of Texas Press, 2019).