Reading The Atlantic

The Atlantic Monthly was founded in Boston in 1857 by such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Greenleaf Whittier.  James Russel Lowell was the first editor.  No longer published monthly, its name is simply The Atlantic.  Originally, it was a literary and culture publication.  Today, it covers news, politics, culture, technology, health, and more. 

Any issue of The Atlantic is loaded with articles that could be a subject of an SDG. Almost any article would make a fascinating topic for a single week’s discussion.  Admittedly, the magazine has a liberal slant, but tearing that slant apart in a collegial way will make each week's study group more interesting

As I write this, I'm looking at the May,  2022 issue - the Table of Contents includes Ukraine and the End of the Liberal World Order, How Social Media Made America Stupid, Europe's Ex-Royals, Winslow Homer's America, A Global View of World War II, The End of Mom Guilt...and more.

The Atlantic is available by standard subscription and digital subscription, and allows computer access to five free articles a month.

Here’s how we’ll do this: everyone will bring the current issue of The Atlantic to the pre-meeting.  Or, if there's a topic you are interested in from another issue, we can tackle it.  Topics as well as weeks for presentation will be chosen by lottery. The magazine article will be the catalyst for more research and for great discussions.

What Really Caused World War I?

World War I was arguably the most significant event of the 20th century. Among other things, it brought down long-standing empires, recognized new countries which emerged from those empires. facilitated the Communist victory in Russia, motivated Germany to launch World War II, caused millions of deaths of soldiers and civilians, drew the boundaries of countries in the Middle East and made a traumatic, emotional impact on the residents of all of the countries and on their leaders. A good case can be made that World War I re-ordered the globe.

In view of the importance of World War I, many have pondered and written about the causes of the War. Many of us will remember being taught in school that the cause was the treaties and “entangling alliances” among the European countries. And, of course, each combatant country blamed its wartime opponents. To make it even more confusing, it is difficult to see what each country was trying to gain by going to war. Each country had sophisticated, experienced foreign ministers. And yet, they took their countries into a disastrous war. Why?

There has been continuing exploration of that issue. Two of the best books on the subject are Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August,” which is excellent in evaluating the principal actors and temper of the times, and Christopher Clark’s “The Sleepwalkers-How Europe Went to War in 1914,” whose title embodies the theme of the book. But the best book I have seen is Sean McMeekin’s “July 1914, Countdown to War,” our core book, which takes the reader on a fascinating account, day by day and sometimes hour by hour, through the critical period of just over one month, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the opening shots of World War I. It shows clearly what each leader did, or didn’t do, to prevent and/or prepare for war. Based on original source material, it is a narrative of the leaders of each country who saw that a war was coming, but took little constructive action to prevent it and, in essence, led their countries to war to prevent their opponents from attacking first.

After dealing with background history, the assassination and the preliminary skirmishing between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia that followed the assassination, this SDG will take the approach of “July 1914”: We will read and discuss the leaders of each of the major countries (France, Germany, Russia, Britain, Austro-Hungarian Empire) and their actions, inactions and missed opportunities on a day-by-day basis. Was the war inevitable?  Why did so many Europeans think that war would be a good thing for Europe?  The goals here are to assess the attitudes of the aristocrats who ran foreign policy, the extent of the actual conflicts then existing among the countries, how each conceived the national interest of his country, how each dealt with potential allies and potential enemies, how they handled the approaching war and what could have been done differently. The idea is to look into the details, rather than accept summaries; to analyze, rather than accept traditional explanations. Finally, we will ask if the facts we explore hold any lessons for our own time.

In addition to the core book, portions of The Guns of August and The Sleepwalkers will be part of the assigned readings. Also, there is an incredible array of books and articles on every aspect the World War I, including the books specified in this proposal.

Joseph Conrad Shorter Stories

Bertrand Russell characterized Joseph Conrad’s writings as “the boring down into things to get to the very bottom below the apparent facts. ” Indeed, Joseph Conrad’s writings are generally acknowledged as some of the finest examples of English literature. Conrad is mostly known for his novels, such as Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness and Secret Agent. Less known, but equally reflect Conrad’s genius, are his shorter stories. 

Great short stories by the O. Henry prize winners, 2021-22

The O. Henry Prize is the oldest major prize for short fiction in America. These anthologies include the prize winners for the past two years, selected among outstanding writers of fiction around the globe, at all points in their careers. Many are translated from other languages. We will read 2 or 3 stories each week; the reading load will not be high, but the stories will be thoughtful, often provocative, funny, sad, frightening, explicit, unpredictable. They will make for great discussions.  

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is widely considered the greatest novel ever written.  Published in 1878, it remains as relevant and fresh.  The writer is the immortal Leo Tolstoy, who at a time of change in Russia, uses unforgettable characters to deal with themes of betrayal, faith, family, marriage, desire and rural vs. city life.  All of this is set amid the background of inimitable Imperial Russian society, the features of which are described, evaluated and part of the story..  Centering on an extramarital affair between Anna and a dashing cavalry officer Count Vronsky that scandalizes St. Petersburg and forces the young lovers who flee to Italy in search of happiness only to have their lives continue to unravel upon return to Russia.  Tolstoy develops complex characters using brilliant descriptions and complex plot twists.

On the Fringe of Europe in the Middle Ages: How Britain Became Britain

This SDG is the story of how Britain became Britain over the course of one thousand years, from approximately 500 A.D. to 1500 A.D.  With the withdrawal of the Romans in the 5th Century the British Isles consisted of a variety of small fiefdoms consisting of several ethnic groups, including the original Britons in the South, the Picts in the Northeast and the Celts in the West.  By 1500 the British Isles looked very much as they do today, with England in the South, Scotland in the North, and Ireland and Wales in the West.  Scotland and Wales would soon join England to form Great Britain.

The first part of the SDG will look at the effects of the Roman withdrawal; the arrival and influence of the Saxons; the formation of the early kingdoms; the beginnings and growth of the Christian Church; the invasions of the Vikings; the consolidation of Anglo-Saxon rule in the South; and then the decline of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies.

The second part of the SDG will begin with the Norman invasion and the effect of Norman control of much of England, Ireland and what is now western France.  We will look at the development of the monarchy, the events leading to the Magna Carta and the beginnings of the English parliament; the establishment and influence of the Church; the organization and structure of society; the economy; English claims to much of France; and the dynastic struggles that, among other things, led to the Wars of the Roses and the rise of the Tudors.

American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850

Alan Taylor is a Pulitzer-Prize winning historian who has authored, among other works, the core books for three very well-received PLATO SDGs: American Colonies, The Settling of North America, American Revolutions, A Continental History, 1750-1804; and The Civil War of 1812. His broad view of American history, his excellent writing, and his unique insights were praised by past SDG members in these courses. His most recent work, American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850, is the winner of The New York Historical Society’s 2022 Book Prize in American History. Like his other works, it has been described as “…sweeping, beautifully written, prodigiously researched and myth-busting.”

American Republics is the third in the series of Taylor's works that began with the colonial period (American Colonies) and ended in 1804 (American Revolutions) . It tells the story of the fragile American Republic during the  period from the end of America’s war of independence until the Compromise of 1850.

As he has in his earlier works, Taylor challenges the myths that we learned in school, painting a picture of a fragmented America beset by conflict, white supremacy, and violent aggression towards Indians and Blacks. The period of this new work is one of territorial expansion through war, violence and land grabs, and of bitter conflicts among its own people and states. As he has in his earlier works, Taylor studies this period through different perspectives, including those of its native peoples, both enslaved and free Blacks, and of the peoples and rulers of  Canada, the West Indies,  Mexico, and  Europe. He (and our SDG ) will also study the competing Hamiltonian/Jeffersonian visions of America, the bitter divisions over slavery that threatened the survival of the Republic, the American economy, the War with Mexico, the Donner Party, Shakerism, and much more.  American Republics also portrays many memorable characters, including Sojourner Truth, Andrew Jackson, Adams, Clay, Calhoun and Webster and writers like Cooper, Irving, Poe and Emerson, and many more. This will be an SDG that PLATO members interested in American history will love.

This SDG will be coordinated jointly by Sam Pryor and Paul Markowitz. 

Weimar on the Pacific

In the 1930s and 40s, Los Angeles became an unlikely cultural sanctuary for a distinguished group of German artists and intellectuals―including Thomas Mann, Theodore W. Adorno, Bertolt Brecht, Fritz Lang, and Arnold Schoenberg―who had fled Nazi Germany. During their years in exile, they would produce a substantial body of major works to address the crisis of modernism that resulted from the rise of National Socialism. Weimar Germany and its culture, with its meld of eighteenth-century German classicism and twentieth-century modernism, served as a touchstone for this group of diverse talents and opinions.

Brecht's Theater

Bertolt Brecht, original name Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, (born February 10, 1898, Augsburg, Germany—died August 14, 1956, East Berlin), German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theater departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes.

Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theater (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theater") 

Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied medicine (Munich, 1917–21), and served in an army hospital (1918). He left for Berlin in 1924, where with the composer Kurt Weill he wrote the satirical, successful ballad opera The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.

During the Nazi Germany period, Bertolt Brecht fled his home country in 1933, first to Scandinavia (1933-41), and during World War II to the United States (1941-47).  He lived in Santa Monica and did some film work in Hollywood. In Germany his books were burned, and his citizenship was withdrawn. He was cut off from the German theater; but between 1937 and 1941 he wrote most of his great plays, his major theoretical essays and dialogues, and many of the poems. While in US, he was surveilled by the FBI. After the war he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Many of his best known plays were written in his exile years (1933-1947)

Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theater company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.

Brecht's theater has influenced many playwrights such as David Hare, Caryl Churchill, Arthur Miller and Tony Kushner, and film makers such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Jean-Luc Godard.

In this SDG, we will read, view, if possible, ten of his most notable plays and discuss the content, as well as the structure and impact of each play and they differ from classical theater.