Florentines from Dante to Galileo--The Transformation of Western Civilization

The 400 years between the birth of Dante and the death of Galileo are among the most dazzling in history. As said in the title of our Core Book, it led the “Transformation of Western Civilization.” Florentine humanism promoted the ideas of common humanity and reason, rather than faith alone. These ideas began and flourished in Florence. It argued the importance of this world, as opposed to complete concentration on the next world. Its artists are regarded to this day as among the greatest ever, as travelers to Italy can attest. Its businessmen and bankers pioneered trade and banking. Its leaders were sometimes ruthless, but fostered the progress of Florence all these fields. In literature, it produced Dante, Petrarch, Bocaccio and Machiavelli. In science, it produced Galileo and that led to the debate (still going on) between religion and science. In politics, the Medici family were the political leaders for much of our period—they were uniquely talented and produced four important popes--and the Borgias exercised ruthless leadership.

This SDG will focus on the people who made Florence into the transformative place that it was, including the works they produced and the lasting results. They are among the giants in each of their fields. They are shown in the list of weekly topics. In the course of discussing each of them, we will necessarily deal with the history of Florence and the political, social and religious context in which each of them lived and worked. To understand Florence is to understand the Renaissance and the Core Book emphasizes how the lives of the individuals contributed to this transformation of society.

The Core Book, Paul Strathern’s “The Florentines—from Dante to Galileo—The Transformation of Western Civilization,” is well written and reads easily. There are, of course, many books dealing with the history of Florence, some of which are listed in the Bibliography, and many books and on-line articles dealing with the individuals. It is anticipated that Presenters will include art works and literary excepts.

Beethoven: An Introduction to His Life and Music

Every once in a while there comes a person who castes a shadow so large that we can’t help but feel its shade, and Ludwig van Beethoven was one of them. 

It's impossible to over-emphasize Beethoven’s impact on Western culture. He single-handedly moved classical music into the modern age with works that today still sound new. And what’s even more astonishing is that his achievements were in spite of huge adversities throughout his life from the debilitating deafness that plagued him from early adulthood to unrequited love and the critics and audiences who simply weren’t able to understand his work. But by the time of his death Beethoven had defined a new cultural age and inspired such extraordinary fervor that his funeral was attended by more than 20,000 people. His music and personality have captured the imagination of successive generations of composers and listeners to an extent unmatched by any other composer.

Over 252 years since his birth, his music still speaks from his heart to our hearts. His 9th Symphony was played during the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has been sung by a chorus of 10,000 in Japan. It is the anthem of the European Union. And Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is the most requested piece in the annual poll taken of listeners of local radio station KUSC. There is even a statue of him in Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles.

The year 2020 marked the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Sadly many celebrations had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the publication of several important new books on his life and works moved forward. Among them was our core book by Oxford University professor Laura Tunbridge. Meant for a general readership, the book takes the novel approach of exploring his adult life by a different topic in each chapter which the author associates with a non-technical analysis of one of his compositions, using a different genre in which he composed in each chapter. Since the book does not address the first 30 years of Beethoven’s life, there will be a second core book, a biography by music critic John Suchet along with several of Beethoven’s early compositions.

This sdg is meant to be an introduction to Beethoven and only a sampling of his many works can be included. Participants will be provided with YouTube links to each of the compositions that we will study so that they can listen to them at home. Excerpts may be played in class to enhance the discussions.

Both Tunbridge and Suchet only briefly touch upon the magnificent 9th Symphony in their books, but we will be spending a whole session on this masterpiece using mostly online references as a guide. The Wikipedia article alone is 30 pages. Written while he was profoundly deaf, the message of hope for worldwide friendship that is contained in the choral 4th movement, the Ode to Joy, is emotionally uplifting to all who understand its message.

The Chancellor - The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel

This SDG will be a human more than a political exploration of Angela Merkel, and is based on the highly readable core book, The Chancellor, by Kati Marton. Marton is a perfect author for a deep dive into the complicated background that shaped this enigmatic German Chancellor, whom Harvard called “a pivotal Democratic figure widely regarded as the most respected woman leader in the world.”

Trained as a Quantum Chemist, this East German raised daughter of a Pastor in an atheist leaning environment was sorely underestimated and even called “Mädchen” or “my girl” by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Kohl’s miscalculation of Merkel’s abilities led to the loss of his political career.

Angela Merkel learned how to assert power by observing powerful men. This woman, with “unshakeable confidence” does not think that the “arc of history bends towards justice” -- "instead she is an action-driven optimist with a sharp awareness of human frailty.” -- “Hubris, is a male weakness, as Merkel’s attitude toward Putin and Trump suggests.” -- “As a woman in power she has more urgent things to attend to than ego,” states Marton.

Kati Marton’s own story, whose childhood was spent in communist controlled Hungary, adds enormous depth and understanding to the environment so crucial to the formation of Merkel’s complex character. Marton’s career as an award-winning NPR correspondent and ABC News Bureau Chief in Germany gave her a close-up study as she explains how Merkel isn’t who we think she is.

This SDG will look at how Merkel’s near photographic memory, ravenous appetite for work, unique physical stamina and unusual scientific approach to solutions contributed to the chance to serve and do good as Germany’s first ever woman Chancellor, successfully reelected for 16 years and the second longest serving leader of the western world.

Our core book is a compelling read. We hope you will join us for a deep dive into this fascinating, powerful, and truly unique woman.

Southern Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was a pivotal era in American history, marked by significant social and political change. It led to landmark legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights acts of 1965. It inspired a generation of artists, musicians and writers and helped to create a new sense of identity and pride among Black and other marginalized groups. The struggle for equality, justice and human rights continues today and by studying the historical events we can perhaps better understand some of the issues of today such as voting rights, racial justice and police reform.

Julian Bond (1940-2015) was a civil rights activist and leader, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, veteran Georgia state Representative and Senator, and, for over two decades, taught a master class at the University of Virginia on the history of the Civil Rights Movement. His teaching assistants gathered his lectures and, in 2021, published Julian Bond's Time to Teach, A History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement.

For this SDG, we, too, will take Bond’s class by reading and discussing his lectures in Time to Teach. In these 22 chapters we will learn what Bond wanted his students to learn: “to see the movement in its full complexity, to understand what it took – the strategy and the organizing, the many many people who pushed it forward and the many, many people who stood in its way – was necessary to understanding our one way forward.” The class begins with the founding of the NAACP, the impacts of World War II and the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown decision. It continues with boycotts, marches, freedom rides and carries us through the anti-Vietnam War and Black Power Movements. To teach about the Southern civil rights movement was a way to carry it forward to a new generation and [Bond] thrilled to this. It was a way to disrupt the stultifying, politically convenient myths – the master narrative – that had grown around the movement. That narrative, Bond quipped, reduced the movement to “Rosa sat down, Martin stood up, then the white folks saw the light and saved the day.”

In addition to Time to Teach, we will use Taylor Branch’s The King Years, Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement which is a compact edition of his historical trilogy on America in the King Years. We will also supplement our reading with articles and videos such as the outstanding 14 part documentary Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement, narrated by Julian Bond.

These Truths: A Fresh Look at American History from 1492-2018

Our country started with promise and promises. Not all of those promises of equality, sovereignty, and consent, were achieved or were even achievable.

In our core book, the Harvard historian Jill Lepore, in one volume, encapsulates the history of this country from the 1600s through 2018. It articulates the confusion of facts and fiction that have always been with us, as well as the deep and contradictory currents of our society continually swirling. It is not just another history book, although it is a pleasure to read, and seems painfully honest and without excessive political bias, although some reviewers have expressed concern. Based on recent history it seems conservative in its prognostications post 1916 and omissions not material to the underlying theme. It was the basis for a successful SD/G in Winter of 2020.

The question which it raises is if America has, and ever could have lived up to its stated ideals or whether a nation conceived in revolution must always be chaotic, questioning whether the simplistic view of democracy ever worked. It leads us through U.S. history from Columbus up to and through the 2016 election. Its answer is in many ways disturbing, as it shines a light on the American experiment. She says:

“The American experiment has not ended A nation born in revolution will forever struggle against chaos. A nation founded on universal rights will wrestle against the forces of particularism. A nation that toppled hierarchy of birth only to erect a hierarchy of wealth will never know tranquility. A nation of immigrants cannot close its borders. And a nation born in contradiction, liberty in a land of slavery, sovereignty in a land of conquest, will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history.”

The story told contains much information that is new and fresh, and insights which need to be considered, even if rejected. Almost every page, while introducing us to new historical figures and clarifying others, is readily applicable to our present political, social and foreign policy situation. Its focus is pointing out the counterbalancing ideas and movements during this period, highlighting people and events including some that we either do not learn about or fail to understand in context.

It’s a big sweeping book. It covers the history of political thought, the fabric of American social life over the centuries, classic “great man” accounts of contingencies, surprises, decisions, ironies and character, and the vivid experiences of those previously marginalized: women, African-Americans, Native Americans, homosexuals. It encompasses interesting takes on democracy and technology, shifts in demographics, revolutions in economics and the very nature of modernity.

It includes the relationship of the races from the early days, the impact on the secular polity of religious revivals, the ongoing and pernicious response of the South to the Civil War and thereafter, , the role of media, including the sometimes interchangeable connection of polling and advertising to political discourse, the important role of women and how moral issues were the key to their admission into politics and the franchise, our history of authoritarianism and attention to important and interesting people that appear in other histories only in footnotes.

This is a great and fresh way of viewing the entire panorama of our history from well before the 18th century through 2016 and its aftermath in one well written and thoughtful volume.

Jefferson said that the American experiment rests on three “self-evident” truths: political equality, natural rights and the sovereignty of the people. Her question is the extent to which the United states has lived up to its ideals. In history, many had the idea that in America, there existed the Lockean “state of nature,” a place for new beginnings. They weren’t looking hard enough at its past.

Felix Frankfurter: A Life

Felix Frankfurter, vilified by conservatives for being too liberal when he was a law school professor and an advisor to President Roosevelt and vilified by liberals for being too conservative when he was on the Supreme Court (1929-1962), is the subject of a new biography: Democratic Justice. The thesis of the book is that Frankfurter's views on the role of the Supreme Court in the American system of government was consistent throughout his life, consistently democratic. This SDG will examine those views, how they were formed and how they were tested by studying Frankfurter's opinions dealing with the hot button issues of the day (which continue to be hot button issues today, e. g., Brown v. Board of Education and Involved Citizens v. Seattle). But Frankfurter's life is worthy of study not just for his judicial role; he took on the Boston and Harvard establishment in bringing to light the procedural flaws in the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti and the attempt to set a quota for Jewish students at Harvard, he served as the HR Department for the New Deal as well as advising Roosevelt on a range of issues, including matters of war and peace, and as Justice Brandeis's surrogate he became one of the leading Zionists in the United States.

The Book of Genesis

This SDG proposes to engage in an in depth study of the book of Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible. We will discuss such issues as: 

Why was the book of Genesis written and why was it included in the Bible?  

Why does the story of creation, which is probably the latest writing to be included in the Hebrew Bible, appear at the very beginning of the book? 

How does the Biblical creation story compare to Mesopotamian creation stories?  

What happens when a divine commandment conflicts with one's own conscience?

Why are we introduced to so many dysfunctional families?

Finally, we will discuss whether the text has any relevance in the 21st century.

In addition to the Biblical text, we will also be introduced to other texts which relate to the Biblical text, such as Mesopotamian texts relating to the creation story and the Flood story.   

Each week's discussion will culminate with an artistic depiction of an event related to the weekly topic.

Our text will be Robert Alter's translation of Genesis, including commentary.

If you wish to explore this ancient, fascinating text and learn more about it, join the Genesis SDG.

India-US Relations From 1945 to Present

This SDG will explore the relationship between the United States and India from 1945 until the current day. The core book is A Matter of Trust: India-US Relations From Truman to Trump, by Meenakshi Ahamed. The U.S. and India are two countries that conceptually seem destined to be partners but have for decades held remarkably divergent worldviews and all too often pursued conflicting objectives. Among the issues that must be examined are: Pakistan vs. India, religion, caste, non-alignment, the cold war, the U.S. alliance with Pakistan, China's invasion of India, India's overtures to the USSR, India's domestic policy reforms, the end of the cold war, India looking west, education, Bill Clinton's recognition of India's importance, nuclear proliferation, George W. Bush's overtures to India, the influence of the Indian diaspora, Obama building on the Bush years, the changes brought by Trump and Modi and what may be ahead for each country and their relationship. Meenakshi Ahamed draws on a unique trove of presidential papers, newly declassified documents, memoirs and interviews with officials directly involved in events on both sides. Join Us.

China's Economic Miracle That Wasn't

Deng Xiaoping put it in a nutshell in 1992, when he argued for more joint ventures and more foreign investment: “Capitalist Tools in Socialist Hands.” As he saw it, the party had nothing to fear from more openness, since the means of production, from land, capital, energy, raw materials and labor, remained in the hands of the state. Even after the country joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the Communist Party could provide the enterprises it favored with cheap land, cheap energy or cheap raw materials, not to mention cheap labor and a currency exchange rate controlled by the state.

In truth, what happened was not only no miracle but something far short of “reform.” Deng set a target growth rate for China’s economy at 7%, with corresponding quotas handed out to state enterprises. The scramble to meet and exceed the state’s targets caused waste in some areas and vast deficits in others. By the early 2000s, roughly 90% of all manufactured products in China were in chronic oversupply. To produce them, China required a constant flow of natural resources that strained global supply chains.

What was the result of the contradictions in the reform policies? Why is the image that emerges very different from the impression that many have of today’s China?. Why do the country’s gleaming cities resemble an impressively shipshape tanker, with the captain and his lieutenants standing proudly on the bridge, but below deck, sailors are desperately pumping water and plugging holes to keep the vessel afloat?