News and Events

Bard College Presents Renowned Historian Dominic Sandbrook in Conversation with Richard Aldous on May 6

Bard College presents its annual Eugene Meyer Lecture in British History and Literature with renowned British historian Dominic Sandbrook. Sandbrook, one of Britain’s most distinguished historians and cohost of the most widely downloaded history podcast in the world The Rest is History, will talk about Britain in the 1980s with Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History.

Bard College Presents Renowned Historian Dominic Sandbrook in Conversation with Richard Aldous on May 6

Bard College presents its annual Eugene Meyer Lecture in British History and Literature with renowned British historian Dominic Sandbrook. Sandbrook, one of Britain’s most distinguished historians and cohost of the most widely downloaded history podcast in the world The Rest is History, will talk about Britain in the 1980s with Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History. The talk will take place in the Lásló Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium (RKC 103) of the Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation at Bard College on Tuesday, May 6 at 5:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.

A hundred years after the birth of Magaret Thatcher and 50 years after she became the first woman to lead a major British political party, Dominic Sandbrook will delve into Britain in the seminal decade of the eighties. “The story of these years is bitterly contested,” he has written. “There is no consensus about the 1980s and there never will be.” From the conservative revolution to inner-city riots, Princess Diana, Chariots of Fire, and multiculturalism, this was a time of great cultural originality, political ambition and controversy, and wide scale social change—and all to a soundtrack by The Specials, Bananarama, and The Clash. Bard professor Richard Aldous will speak with renowned historian Dominic Sandbrook about Britain in the eighties for the latest event in Bard’s Eugene Meyer Lecture Series on British History and Literature, commemorating Eugene Meyer (1875–1959)—owner and publisher of the Washington Post, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and first President of the World Bank.

“Dominic Sandbrook is that rare thing, the brilliant historian who is also immensely popular,” says Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History at Bard. “His revisionist scholarship has transformed the way in which we write about postwar Britain, and his podcast, The Rest is History—with 11 million monthly downloads—has used technology to expand the range of how history is presented and enjoyed.”

Dominic Sandbrook is one Britain’s best and best-known historians. Educated at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, he taught at the University of Sheffield before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of eight books, including five volumes of a bestselling and critically acclaimed history of Britain from the 1960s to the 1980s. He has presented numerous BBC documentaries and is cohost of The Rest is History—the most popular history podcast in the world. He is currently working on an opera about Margaret Thatcher with the composer Joseph Phibbs.

Richard Aldous is Eugene Meyer Distinguished Professor of History at Bard and the author of eight books, including Reagan and Thatcher.

The Eugene Meyer Series was established in 2010 in association with the endowment of the tenured Eugene Meyer Chair. Richard Aldous has held the chair since its inception. Previous Eugene Meyer Lecture Series invited speakers have included Sir David Cannadine, Andrew Roberts, Colm Tóibín, Olivette Otele, David Reynolds, Fintan O’Toole, Francine Prose, and Lord Skidelsky.

Post Date: 04-08-2025

Bard Professor Christian Ayne Crouch Participates in “Unsettled Landscapes” Roundtable Discussion

Christian Ayne Crouch, dean of graduate studies and associate professor of history and American and Indigenous studies at Bard College, participated in a roundtable conversation, sponsored by the Bard College Center for Indigenous Studies, with Alan Michelson, an artist and Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, and Dr. Scott Manning Stevens, who is a citizen of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and curator of the exhibit Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape, on display at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill.

Book Review: Richard Aldous Reviews America’s Cold Warrior by James Graham Wilson

In a review for the Wall Street Journal, Eugene Meyer Professor of British History and Culture at Bard College Richard Aldous calls James Graham Wilson’s America’s Cold War Warrior on the life and legacy of statesman Paul Nitze “a brilliant political biography, elegantly written, rich in archival material.” Nitze was an expert on military power and strategic arms and served as negotiator and diplomat in several administrations from the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan.

More History News

Bard Professor Richard Aldous’s New Book The Dillon Era Reviewed in the Wall Street Journal

Bard Professor Richard Aldous’s New Book The Dillon Era Reviewed in the Wall Street Journal

The Dillon Era, a new book by Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Professor of British History and Culture at Bard College, was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. The book, which explores the political career of C. Douglas Dillon, the 57th US secretary of the treasury, offers a new perspective of Dillon as an overlooked but deeply influential figure in the presidential administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Aldous “makes a persuasive case for Dillon’s beneficial role in the tumultuous history of postwar America,” writes Philip Terzian for the Wall Street Journal. “Along the way, he invokes testimonials from JFK (who, according to his brother Robert, thought Dillon ‘a brilliant man’) and approbation from the economist Paul Samuelson and the campaign chronicler Theodore H. White, as well as from the New York Times editorial page, which coined the phrase that furnishes the book’s title.”

Read more in the Wall Street Journal

Post Date: 10-10-2023

New York Times Opinion: Bard Professor Sean McMeekin’s Book on Stalin Is Recommended Reading for Historical Context on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer

New York Times Opinion: Bard Professor Sean McMeekin’s Book on Stalin Is Recommended Reading for Historical Context on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer

According to New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat, of all the reading one can do to put the events of the film Oppenheimer into historical and political context, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, by Sean McMeekin, Francis Flournoy Professor of European History and Culture at Bard College, is the one that will restore “a corrective to the movie’s final act, in which the spirit of a simplifying anti-anti-communism prevails over the political complexity that Nolan carries off for most of the film.” McMeekin’s book examines Stalin, not Hitler, “as the central figure in the global conflagration, an instigator and manipulator and ultimate victor” of the Second World War, writes Douthat. “And any viewer of Oppenheimer the movie would be wise to hold the malignancy of Stalin, the scale of his success at both conquest and manipulation, in mind while watching its complex hero’s complex fate unfold.”

Read more in NYTimes

Post Date: 08-08-2023

Book Review: Professor Richard Aldous Reviews Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights by Samuel G. Freedman

Book Review: Professor Richard Aldous Reviews Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights by Samuel G. Freedman

For the Wall Street Journal, Eugene Meyer Professor of British History and Culture at Bard College Richard Aldous reviews author, columnist, and professor Samuel G. Freedman’s most recent book Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights, calling it “a powerful and captivating read.” Examining Humphrey’s early life and political career, Freedman asserts that Humphrey’s 1948 speech, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, advocating for civil rights legislation and racial equality made the Democratic Party confront its position on civil rights, and “set into motion the partisan realignment that defines American politics right up through the present”—also marking the beginning of the civil rights movement in America long before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision desegregating schools and the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Aldous writes: “This is a big claim to make of the man and the moment, so it is to Mr. Freedman’s credit that by and large he makes his case thoughtfully and persuasively.”

Read more in the Wall Street Journal

Post Date: 07-17-2023

Three Bard College Students Win Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad

Three Bard College Students Win Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad

Three Bard College students have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships by the US Department of State. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. This cohort of Gilman scholars will study or intern in more than 80 countries and represents more than 520 US colleges and universities in all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Dance major Zara Boss ’25, from Portland, Maine, has been awarded a $3,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, via CIEE for spring 2024. Boss also received a $5,000 Freeman-ASIA award, which provides scholarships for US undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need to study abroad in East or Southeast Asia. “Being a Gilman scholarship recipient is an incredible honor, as it will allow my life-long aspiration of studying in Japan to come to fruition. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be immersed in the language and culture and am immensely looking forward to studying literature and dance in Tokyo this upcoming spring,” said Boss.

Historical Studies major Chi-Chi Ezekwenna ’25, from Bronx, New York, has been awarded a $3,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea via tuition exchange from fall 2023 to spring 2024. “Receiving the Gilman scholarship has allowed for a dream that has been fostering since I was 12 years old to finally become a reality. I used to believe that the chance to visit Korea would only come much later down the road, yet I was positively proven wrong, as being a Gilman recipient has allowed me the chance to go during my college career,” said Ezekwenna.

Bard College Conservatory and Economics dual major Nita Vemuri ’24 has been awarded a $3,000 Gilman scholarship to study in Paris, France for summer 2023. “I am beyond thrilled to learn more about French music and its relationship to the French language in Paris with the help of the Gilman scholarship,” said Vemuri.

Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 38,000 Gilman Scholars from all US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other US territories have studied or interned in more than 160 countries around the globe. The Department of State awarded more than 3,600 Gilman scholarships during the 2022-2023 academic year.

As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.”

The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”

The Gilman Program is sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org

Post Date: 05-23-2023

Bard College Division of Social Studies Announces Nathanael Aschenbrenner as Assistant Professor in Historical Studies

Bard College Division of Social Studies Announces Nathanael Aschenbrenner as Assistant Professor in Historical Studies

Bard College’s Division of Social Studies is pleased to announce the appointment of Nathanael Aschenbrenner as Assistant Professor of History. His tenure-track appointment will begin in the fall of the 2023–24 academic year.

Nathanael Aschenbrenner is a historian of cross-cultural contacts in the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean. He is co-editor of The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe (Dumbarton Oaks Press, 2022), and has published articles on the history of scholarship, Byzantine oratory, and late medieval politics. Aschenbrenner is also currently working on a monograph about political and ideological competition over the legacy of the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean world titled Empire Beyond Rome: Antiquity, Legitimacy, and Power in the Mediterranean, 1200–1550, under contract with Princeton University Press. His other projects investigate the collection and interpretation of Byzantine material culture in the early modern Mediterranean and unrecognized intersections between scholarship and colonialism's materials and mentalities.

Aschenbrenner earned a BS from the United States Naval Academy in 2000 and served as a US Navy Special Operations Officer until 2009. He studied global and medieval history at Georgetown University and King's College, London, finishing his joint MA in 2012. He received his PhD in medieval history from Harvard University in 2019.

Post Date: 05-11-2023

“The Real Developmental Engine:” Jeannette Estruth on the Relationship between Silicon Valley and the Military-Industrial Complex for The Drift

“The Real Developmental Engine:” Jeannette Estruth on the Relationship between Silicon Valley and the Military-Industrial Complex for The Drift

“Despite the persistent myth that Silicon Valley was built by rogue engineers in Palo Alto garages, federal funding — especially from the military — has long been the real developmental engine of the American technology sector,” writes Assistant Professor of History Jeannette Estruth for The Drift. Estruth traces the history of Silicon Valley and its innovations, both software and hardware, outlining the longstanding partnerships between the technology sector and the federal government. “High tech’s value has long been in producing war-making technology for the federal government,” Estruth writes, a relationship that, she argues, has historically gone both ways. With public criticism of “Big Tech” on the rise, “the public is falling out of love” with Silicon Valley and its ilk. The question now, she writes, is “whether Washington could be persuaded to do the same.”

Read More in The Drift

Post Date: 02-28-2023

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2025

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

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Wednesday, February 12, 2025

A Talk by Peter Vale, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5
In mid-May each year, following the annual sorghum harvest, the heads of the Bayeke and Basanga of the southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), known as Katanga, declare: tuye tukadie mukuba, “let’s go eat the copper.” But what does it mean to “eat” copper? This talk traces the evolution of this unique idea during the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods. In drawing together copper artifacts, oral accounts, colonial ethnographies, historical images, and postcolonial propaganda, this talk suggests that the “eating” of copper represents the deep material and conceptual tie between agriculture and mining in Central African environmental systems.

Indigenous miners consistently re-imagined modes of human engagement with the earth and its resources to foster new economic and ecological potentials. The historical persistence of this notion of “eating copper” underscores the profound cultural and economic attachments that have shaped Congolese communities’ relationships to extraction in a locale that has become the epicenter for global decarbonization and inequality initiatives.

Peter Vale is a historian of Africa, specializing in environmental systems, political economy, and empire to decolonization. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. His present book project, The Copper Eaters: Inventing Capitalism in Central Africa, asks why, despite persistent economic decline and devastating ecological consequences, Congolese (DRC) workers, residents, and officials have maintained such a deep attachment to a copper mining industry dominated by extractive, foreign capital. Drawing on community bulletins in Kiswahili, Kisanga, and French; interviews with miners and executives; and archives across seven countries, he traces the layering of social institutions, environmental knowledge, and political interests that have shaped Congolese expectations towards mineral extraction. He is also working on developing a second research project, tentatively titled Pan-African Skies, which will offer the first transnational history of African airlines.

Monday, February 10, 2025

Friday, February 7, 2025

News and Events

Bard College Presents Renowned Historian Dominic Sandbrook in Conversation with Richard Aldous on May 6

Bard College Presents Renowned Historian Dominic Sandbrook in Conversation with Richard Aldous on May 6

Bard Professor Christian Ayne Crouch Participates in “Unsettled Landscapes” Roundtable Discussion

Bard Professor Christian Ayne Crouch Participates in “Unsettled Landscapes” Roundtable Discussion

Book Review: Richard Aldous Reviews America’s Cold Warrior by James Graham Wilson

Book Review: Richard Aldous Reviews America’s Cold Warrior by James Graham Wilson

Bard Professor Richard Aldous’s New Book The Dillon Era Reviewed in the Wall Street Journal

New York Times Opinion: Bard Professor Sean McMeekin’s Book on Stalin Is Recommended Reading for Historical Context on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer

Book Review: Professor Richard Aldous Reviews Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights by Samuel G. Freedman

Three Bard College Students Win Gilman International Scholarships to Study Abroad

Bard College Division of Social Studies Announces Nathanael Aschenbrenner as Assistant Professor in Historical Studies

“The Real Developmental Engine​:” Jeannette Estruth on the Relationship between Silicon Valley and the Military-Industrial Complex for The Drift

Historical Study Events

2025

“The Real Developmental Engine:” Jeannette Estruth on the Relationship between Silicon Valley and the Military-Industrial Complex for The Drift