The Golden Age of American Drama

In the 1930’s and 1940’s American theater came into its own. The variety, quality and social relevance of the plays made it truly the Golden Age of American Theater. The plays selected for this SDG deal with the social and political issues that engaged the country, including the Great Depression, economic inequality, Freudian theories, World War II and American economic success after the War. The best of them combine serious treatment of those issues with skillful and entertaining drama. The playwrights include Odets, Kingsley, Miller, Williams, van Druten, Wilder, Hellman, O’Neill, Barry and McCullers.

Discussions will include each play’s structure, language and characters, as well as its societal setting and message. There will also be a focus on the lives and careers of the playwrights and two organizations that sponsored important plays in the 1930’s, the Group Theater and the Federal Theater Project. Each Presenter will be encouraged to select key passages of the plays for that week for SDG members to read aloud "in character."

Rule, Britannia! 200 years of the British Empire

This is a story of wealth and power and glory. It is also the story of misery and exploitation and plunder. Britain, a tiny island nation, came to rule an empire that encompassed 24% of the world's land mass and 23% of the world's population. How and why are the questions we will seek to answer in this SDG. 

Historian Piers Brendon guides us through the life of Britannia, from the loss of the North American colonies to the loss of Hong Kong. His telling is one of people, places and events We will see that the Empire would have been impossible without the cooperation of local individuals. We will meet them in the course of this SDG, along with local armies who fought for Britain and independence fighters who eventually tore the empire apart. 

We will visit the jungles of Africa and Asia, the wilderness of New Zealand and the great cities of London, Dublin, Jerusalem, Cairo, Delhi, Rangoon, Singapore and Hong Kong as we get to know the politicians, proconsuls, officials, soldiers, traders, writers, explorers, adventurers, entrepreneurs, prospectors, and missionaries who wanted to rule the world. The impetus for empire was varied: some tried sincerely to bring progress and improvement, others came for trade and commerce, others for adventure – but almost all brought attitudes of greed and a belief in their own superiority. 

Britain changed the map of the world and the lives of millions of people. We will look at the legacy of empires, both the good and the bad. It is said that the "sun never set on the British Empire" but we will learn discover that the seeds of its destruction had been sown early and by the late twentieth century, the British Empire was gone.

Join us to find out just how and why the sun did, indeed, set.

The British Are Coming; The War for America 1775-1777

In this first part of a three part Revolutionary Trilogy, Rick Atkinson, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the story of the first twenty-one months of America's violent effort to forge a new nation. From the battles of Lexington and Concord in spring in 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1776-77, American militiamen and the ragged Continental Army take on the world's most formidable fighting force and struggle to avoid annihilation. It is a gripping saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery; Nathaniel Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who became one of America's greatest battle captain; Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proves himself the nations wiliest diplomat, George Washington, the commander in chief who learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost. The story is also told from the British perspective: we see the fight through their eyes and down their gun barrels, which make the mortal conflict between the redcoats and the rebels all the more compelling. Full of riveting details and untold stories, the British Are Coming gives new life to an old tale.

Capitalism: The Future of the System that Rules the World

Capitalism now dominates as the major, if not sole, economic system globally. What will it mean for delivering a more equitable social and economic world? This SDG will explore Branco Milanovic's thesis that Capitalism has triumphed because it works--it has delivered more prosperity to more people and gratifies human desires for autonomy, but at a moral price --instablility, inequality, corruption and excess. He examines the shift leading to Capitalism's dominance and examines the varieties of Capitalist systems (classical, liberal-meritocratic, and political). He then proposes a set of economic and social policies to consider for moving toward a People's Capitalism to address today's crises of increasing inequality and political conflict. In this SDG, we will assess his thesis, review critiques of the current state of capitalism and his prescriptions for its future. 

Brexit: United Kingdom or Untied Kingdom?

This proposed SDG will begin with Winston Churchill's driving role in making of a United Europe, through the Common Market, the evolution of the European Union through Brexit and beyond.

The overall plan is to spend seven weeks on this vital and current subject to analyze if the United Kingdom as it exists today will survive and function with the remainder of Europe or disintegrate into just England, with the possibility of Scotland, Northern Ireland or even Wales each going their separate way and rejoin the European Union (or even in the case of Northern Ireland, be part of a expanded Republic of Ireland).  Additionally, if the above were to happen, would the remainder England still hold its permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

The SDG will use a core book, and excerpts from one or two other specific books, as well as supplied scholarly  articles, lectures as well as time articles from the three leading newspapers (Times, Telegraph and Guardian).

Nine Historic Revolutions

The SDG will cover two interlaced subjects. One subject will be how to think about and understand the path of revolutions. This leads to a comparison of the nine revolutions to see the similarities and differences between them. It allows us to then state a general outlook on how all revolutions tend to act and proceed in a systematic process.

The second subject will be to develop a picture of each revolution as it proceeded over time. What were its main features? Why did it begin? Who were the main people and classes that participated in it? What were the results? What was the impact on the whole story of society?

The final weeks of the SDG will focus on putting together a consistent and comprehensive story of the process of revolution. The sessions will also cover a systematic statement of the theory of revolution plus discussion of how to begin and end a revolution.

The core book will be Howard Sherman’s recent book entitled “9 Historic Revolutions”. This book will be supplemented with additional readings to explore each topic further.

The Mirage Factory - Illusion, Imagination & the Invention of Los Angeles

Krist captures Los Angeles in the period between 1900 and 1930, when an agricultural town of 100,000 people became a burgeoning city of 1.2 million, replete with new industries, a new identity and, crucially, newfound water, in spite of the fact that this was “no sensible place to build a great city.”  He directs our attention to three individuals whose restlessness and ambition exemplified the city’s transformation:  the engineer and water czar William Mulholland, the filmmaker D. W. Griffith and the Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.  They were outsiders who sought their fortunes in LA and whose stars burned bright before they flamed out.

In Krist’s account water came first, brought from the Owens River, north of the city, via the Los Angeles Aqueduct, an enormous public works project completed in 1913.  The aqueduct’s 233-mile path also forms the narrative spine of his book.  Los Angeles could finally feel confident that the greatest obstacle to its growth had been removed.  A decade later, the growing city started pumping groundwater from the Owens Valley, whose resentful residents retaliated, on occasion, with dynamite.  By July 1927 the aqueduct had been bombed no fewer than 10 times.  Nineteen twenty-seven was also the first year in more than a decade that David Wark Griffith hadn’t released one of his grandiose films.  Having achieved spectacular success with The Birth of a Nation(1915), Griffith struggled to keep up with changing tastes and the advent of the talkies.  Krist expertly weaves together the stories of Griffith, Mulholland and McPherson, the charismatic evangelist from rural Canada who moved to Los Angeles to attend to the city’s spiritual needs. McPherson’s congregation bloomed with the city, and after surviving a (possible) kidnapping, her ultimate downfall, when it happened, came tragically and too soon.

But above all Krist is a nimble scene-setter, and it’s the indelible details he offers that give The Mirage Factory its mesmerizing pull.  You will finish reading The Mirage Factory entertained, informed and satisfied.