As part of its Lyceum Series the Whallonsburg Grange will be hosting a series of talks that will be given by Andy Buchanan, a lecturer in global history, American and military history at the University of Vermont. The talks will be every Tuesday at 7:30p.m. beginning on Feburary 21 and run through April 17. Price is $32 for the series or $5 per class. Students pay half-price. Drop-ins welcome! Go learn some world history in only nine weeks!

Class 1, 2/21: Humankind Makes Itself: From the Origins of Humanity To the Farming Revolution
Class 2, 2/28:  City States, Empires, and the Cosmopolitan World that Bound Them
Class 3, 3/6: The Opening of the Eurasian Ecumene: Hellenism, Han China, and the Silk Road
Class 4, 3/13: Dark Age Europe, a Resurgent Middle East, and Rise of China
Class 5, 3/20: From Atilla to Ghenghis Khan: Eurasian Networks of Trade and War
Class 6, 3/27: Europe Rises I: Feudalism, the “Age of Discovery,” and the Origins of Capitalism
Class 7, 4/3: Europe Rises II: Industry, Democracy, and Imperialism
Class 8, 4/10: War, Depression, and Revolution in the “Short Twentieth Century”
Class 9, 4/17: The Present As History or Where Have We Come From and Where Are We Going?

Suggested Reading:
William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963, 1991).  Be sure to get the 1991 edition with McNeill’s introductory essay, “The Rise of the West after 25 Years,” written in 1988. This is a big book (over 800 pages) and is now a bit dated—as McNeill’s own 1988 essay acknowledges—but it remains the best overall introduction to the subject.