American History

Premiering Aug. 28, The Choice, produced by Dialogue Vanderbilt and featuring Pulitzer Prize–winning author and presidential historian Jon Meacham and Vanderbilt professor, polling expert and political scientist John Geer, will discuss the key moments and the many implications of the 2024 presidential election. Read More

On May 3 and 4, the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator for Political Economy and Regulation and the Vanderbilt University Department of History hosted “How the New Deal Was Run,” a conference about the implementation of the New Deal programs that transformed American life in the 1930s and beyond.  Read More

Watch video of Marshall Eakin, professor of history at Vanderbilt University, speaking April 27 on “The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 1776-1836,” as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The revolution that created the United States was only one of many American revolutions. From 1776 to 1836, wars for… Read More

Watch video of Stephen Ash discussing “William G. Brownlow, Saint or Sinner? A Fresh Look at one of Tennessee’s Most Controversial Civil War Figures” April 21. Ash, professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is author of The Black Experience in the Civil War South and Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of… Read More

Watch video of Marshall Eakin, professor of history at Vanderbilt University, speaking April 20 on “The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 1776-1836,” as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The revolution that created the United States was only one of many American revolutions. From 1776 to 1836, wars for… Read More

Watch video of Marshall Eakin, professor of history at Vanderbilt University, speaking April 13 on “The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 1776-1836,” as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The revolution that created the United States was only one of many American revolutions. From 1776 to 1836, wars for… Read More

Watch the April 7 talk by Bobby Lovett, professor of history at Tennessee State University, “Nashville and the Civil War, 1860-1866, and the Economic, Social and Political Transformations.” Lovett’s areas of expertise include African-American history and Tennessee as well as Nashville history. His books include The African American History of… Read More

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Watch video of Marshall Eakin, professor of history at Vanderbilt University, speaking March 30 on “The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 1776-1836,” as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The revolution that created the United States was only one of many American revolutions. From 1776 to 1836, wars for independence… Read More

Watch video of the talk “Gods and Devils Aplenty: Robert Penn Warren’s Civil War,” by David Blight. Blight, professor of American history and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University, delivered the Harry C. Howard Jr. Lecture March 24. Blight… Read More

Watch video of Marshall Eakin, professor of history at Vanderbilt University, speaking March 23 on “The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 1776-1836,” as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The revolution that created the United States was only one of many American revolutions. From 1776 to 1836, wars for independence… Read More

Watch video of the March 17 talk, “Antigone’s Claim: Gender and Treason in the American Civil War,” by Stephanie McCurry. McCurry is a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania whose areas of expertise include the American South and the Civil War era, and the history of women and… Read More

Watch video of a lecture by Thavolia Glymph, associate professor of history at Duke University, on enslaved women who disappeared during the Civil War. The talk was sponsored by a College of Arts and Science interdisciplinary course on the Civil War. Read More

Watch video of the talk, “The Civil War as a Political Crisis.” On Feb. 17, George Rable, professor and Charles G. Summersell Chair in Southern History at the University of Alabama, spoke on “The Civil War as a Political Crisis,” as part of a series of lectures on campus… Read More

Watch videos of Carole Bucy, professor of history at Volunteer State Community College, teaching classes on “Religious History of the U.S. from the Earliest European Settlements to the Present” as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. You need flash to play this video. Diversity has long been one of… Read More

Watch video of the talk, “Why the Confederacy Lost: The Experiences of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.” Joseph Glatthaar, the Stephenson Distinguished Professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, spoke Feb. 8, 2011, as part of a College of Arts and Science-sponsored series… Read More

Watch video of the Feb. 10, 2011, Black Atlantic Lecture. Mamadou Diouf (African Studies, Columbia University) and Toyin Falola (history, University of Texas at Austin) present “Historicizing the Black Atlantic, Comparative Colonialism, and Transnational Citizenship.” The event is moderated by Moses Ochonu, assistant professor of history, and is co-sponsored by… Read More

Watch video of the Feb. 2, 2011 Thinking Out of the Lunch Box event, “What Is the Meaning of the American Civil War on Its 150th Anniversary?” featuring Michael Kreyling, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English, and Richard Blackett, Andrew Jackson Professor of History. Robert Penn Warren wrote his book The Legacy of… Read More

Stanley Harrold, a Civil War historian at South Carolina State University, spoke Jan. 27, 2011, on “Abolitionism and the Coming of the Civil War.” Harrold has done extensive research on the complex dynamics leading to the Civil War. His most recent book, “Border War,” was published November 2010 by the… Read More

Watch a talk by Jim Lovensheimer, Assistant Professor of Music History and Literature, Blair School of Music. Read More