Boston Athenaeum

Boston Athenaeum

By Boston AthenaeumSociety & Culture
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Boston Athenaeum episodes

  • Robert Zimmerman, Jr., “Nature’s Design: Land, Water, and Climate Change in Boston”
    December 10, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    This free-for-members event is made possible with support from the William Orville Thomson Endowment, which is generously funded by Athenæum Proprietor Peter Thomson.
    We often allow ourselves to be lulled into the notion that the real impacts of climate change will come with sea level rise sometime much later in this century. The truth is that the significant changes of climate are upon us, and the likelihood that we will be hit by catastrophic precipitation-based flooding increases annually. The expectation is that we will suffer flooding like Pensacola, Florida; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Columbia, South Carolina; and Houston, Texas sooner than later, and very likely in the coming twenty years. Yet there are things we can do now to mitigate and even eliminate any impacts, the necessary changes can largely pay for themselves, and those changes would dramatically improve the appeal and livability of our city and region. Join Bob Zimmerman, former executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association, for an in-depth evaluation of our options.
    44 min
  • Nathaniel Philbrick, “In the Hurricane's Eye”
    December 3, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    In the fall of 1780, after five frustrating years of war, George Washington had come to realize that the only way to defeat the British Empire was with the help of the French navy. But as he had learned after two years of trying, coordinating his army’s movements with those of a fleet of warships based thousands of miles away was next to impossible. And then, on September 5, 1781, the impossible happened. Recognized today as one of the most important naval engagements in the history of the world, the Battle of the Chesapeake–fought without a single American ship–made the subsequent victory of the Americans at Yorktown a virtual inevitability.
    In a narrative that moves from Washington’s headquarters on the Hudson River, to the wooded hillside in North Carolina where Nathanael Greene fought Lord Cornwallis to a vicious draw, to Lafayette’s brilliant series of maneuvers across Tidewater Virginia, New York Times bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick details the epic and suspenseful year through to its triumphant conclusion. A riveting and wide-ranging story, full of dramatic, unexpected turns, In the Hurricane’s Eye reveals that the fate of the American Revolution depended, in the end, on Washington and the sea.
    42 min
  • Kendall Taylor, Ph.D, “The Gatsby Affair”
    November 7, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    The romance between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre has been celebrated as one of the greatest of the twentieth century. From the beginning, their relationship was a tumultuous one, in which the couple’s excesses were as widely known as their passion for each other. Despite their love, both Scott and Zelda engaged in flirtations that threatened to tear the couple apart. But none had a more profound impact on the two—and on Scott’s writing—than the liaison between Zelda and French aviator Edouard Jozan. Though other biographies have written of Jozan as one of Scott’s romantic rivals, accounts of the pilot’s effect on the couple have been superficial at best.
    In The Gatsby Affair: Scott, Zelda, and the Betrayal That Shaped an American Classic, Kendall Taylor examines the dalliance between the southern belle and the French pilot from a fresh perspective. Drawing on conversations and correspondence with Jozan’s daughter, as well as materials from the Jozan family archives, Taylor sheds new light on this romantic triangle. More than just a casual fling, Zelda’s tryst with Edouard affected Scott as much as it did his wife—and ultimately influenced the author’s most famous creation, Jay Gatsby. Were it not for Zelda’s affair with the pilot, Scott’s novel might be less about betrayal and more about lost illusions.
    45 min
  • Susan Orlean, “The Library Book”
    November 28, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual false alarm. As one fireman recounted later, “Once that first stack got going, it was Goodbye, Charlie.” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2,000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed 400,000 books and damaged 700,000 more. Investigators descended on the scene, but over thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?
    Weaving her life-long love of books and reading with the fascinating history of libraries and the sometimes-eccentric characters who run them, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean presents a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling story as only she can. With her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, she investigates the legendary Los Angeles Public Library fire to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives. Along the way, she reveals how these buildings provide much more than just books—and that they are needed now more than ever.
    Filled with heart, passion, and unforgettable characters, The Library Book is classic Susan Orlean, and an homage to a beloved institution that remains a vital part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country and culture.
    44 min
  • Simon Winchester, “The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World”
    June 19, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Precision is an essential component of the modern world. Much of what is important in our everyday lives—our cell phones, our computers, our cars, our ballpoint pens—is fitted together with precision to operate with near-perfection. But, what is precision and why is it important? Who invented it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in our world blinded us to other things of equal value? Can the precise and the natural co-exist in society?
    The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World locates the origins of precision in Industrial Age England and introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production. Thomas Jefferson brought their discoveries to the United States, setting the fledgling nation on its course to become a manufacturing titan. Through Winchester’s inimitable, learned, and charming storytelling, you will discover why so many words having to do with cars and driving—“garage,” “chauffeur”—come from the French and where the expression “lock, stock and barrel” originated. You’ll learn about the relationship between the making of guns and the design of shoes, and what a shower head had to do with the design of the Hubble Telescope.
    52 min
  • Caroline Light, “Stand Your Ground: A History of America's Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense”
    June 7, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Today the United States represents about 5% of the world’s population but possesses approximately 40% of its guns. We also experience the highest number of mass shootings, which represent only a small fraction of our annual gun deaths. Perhaps ironically, the spread of guns and naturalization of gun deaths is linked to a widespread acceptance of self-defense, the right to fight back with lethal force when one feels threatened.
    Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair With Lethal Self-Defense explores the complex path by which the English common law “duty to retreat” from threat was transformed into a selective right to kill. Caroline Light will discuss how our nation’s history influences contemporary understandings of vulnerability and threat, and how appeals to race, gender, and class difference shape the adjudication of self-defense cases. In the process, Light seeks to illuminate a history hidden in plain sight, by showing how violent self-defense has been legalized for the most privileged while weaponized against the most vulnerable.
    46 min
  • Philip Dray, “The Fair Chase: The Epic Story of Hunting in America”
    May 30, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    From Daniel Boone to Teddy Roosevelt, hunting is one of America's most sacred-but also most fraught-traditions. It was promoted in the 19th century as a way to reconnect "soft" urban Americans with nature and to the legacy of the country's pathfinding heroes. Fair chase, a hunting code of ethics emphasizing fairness, rugged independence, and restraint towards wildlife, emerged as a worldview and gave birth to the conservation movement. But the sport's popularity also caused class, ethnic, and racial divisions, and stirred debate about the treatment of Native Americans and the role of hunting in preparing young men for war.
    This sweeping and balanced book offers a definitive account of hunting in America. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of our nation's foundational myths.
    53 min
  • Stephen Greenblatt, “Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics”
    October 22, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    As an aging, tenacious Elizabeth I clung to power, a talented playwright probed the social causes, the psychological roots, and the twisted consequences of tyranny. In exploring the psyche (and psychoses) of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, Coriolanus, and the societies they rule over, Stephen Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the catastrophic consequences of its execution.
    Cherished institutions seem fragile, political classes are in disarray, economic misery fuels populist anger, people knowingly accept being lied to, partisan rancor dominates, spectacular indecency rules—these aspects of a society in crisis fascinated Shakespeare and shaped some of his most memorable plays. With uncanny insight, he shone a spotlight on the infantile psychology and unquenchable narcissistic appetites of demagogues—and the cynicism and opportunism of the various enablers and hangers-on who surround them—and imagined how they might be stopped. As Greenblatt shows, Shakespeare’s work, in this as in so many other ways, remains vitally relevant today.
    44 min
  • Erin Corrales-Diaz, “A Great National Painting: James Walker’s The Battle of Gettysburg"
    May 23, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Six years in the making, James Walker’s twenty-foot long The Battle of Gettysburg debuted in Boston on March 14, 1870. No less than five major Boston newspapers lauded the work’s sweep and substance, praising its “remarkable minuteness and comprehensiveness and . . . fidelity.” Indeed, several of the generals depicted in the work (Longstreet, Meade, Hancock, Webb, Hall, and others) vouched for its accuracy—and its pathos. After its first appearance, The Battle of Gettysburg embarked on a cross-country tour with owner, the historian John Badger Bachelder, to “delight and instruct” American audiences. The popularity of the picture and the narrative of the battle of Gettysburg generated a souvenir market including guide books, descriptive keys, and small-scale print reproductions. This commercial industry around Walker’s panoramic painting enabled Bachelder to shape popular perceptions on how Americans interpreted the battle that continue to the present day.
    54 min
  • Aaron Sinift, “The Five Year Plan”
    June 28, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum.
    As a response to his desire to make a work of art, unique in character and materiality, Aaron Sinift created the Five-Year Plan project. The inspiration came from the artworks printed onto the side of sling bags called “jholas” that are commonly made by Gandhi ashram collectives throughout India. The cloth they are made from, called khadi, is made from hand-spun cotton thread woven on hand-looms, a cloth with deep resonance in India.
    Sinift commissioned 1.4 kilometers, almost a mile, of khadi from the Manav Seva Sannidhi Ashram in Modinagar, which employs 700 spinners, the majority of whom are women over the age of 55. The ashram also employs 45 weavers, and 35 helpers. Most of these workers are Dalit Muslim or low-caste Hindu, and are the sole providers for their families.
    The ashrams who created this book made it entirely from khadi cloth featuring screen- and block-printed artworks by 24 artists from 8 countries. He commissioned well-known artists like Francesco Clemente, Yoko Ono, and Chris Martin to contribute one page each. Spinning and weaving the khadi for the Five-Year Plan created more than 2,400 days of work for the ashram and kept 100 families employed for a month.
    49 min

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The Boston Athenaeum, a membership library, first opened its doors in 1807, and its rich history as a library and cultural institution has been well documented in the annals of Boston’s cultural life.…