Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877
EVENT DETAILS
In collaboration with the New-York Historical Society and Oxford University Press, the Bryant Park Reading Room presents a series of free lectures to stimulate your mind on popular topics including politics, biography, Civil War history, and more.
Forebodings of Armageddon
A series of Saturday programs presented in collaboration with the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
EVENT DETAILS
Registration and Continental Breakfast
9 am
Special '21' Club Breakfast & Talk - A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia
Event details
Join us at New York’s landmark ‘21’ Club for this singular program, which includes a breakfast and lecture for $65 (members $55). Book signing with author to follow.
Will China Take Over the World?
Note: This event is sold out
Event details
Armed with the world’s largest population and stunning economic and technological growth, China has emerged as a world superpower; it has been one of the most dramatic developments of our time. Is China poised to replace the United States as the world’s most influential nation? Is that change inevitable? Or has it already happened? Experts discuss China’s continued rise and how America’s role in world affairs will change.
The Money Trust
Event details
"The greatest monopoly in the country is the money monopoly," declared the governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson, in a 1912 presidential campaign broadside, when Wall Street was on trial, as it is today. The Money Trust Investigation, a congressional inquest into the alleged misdeeds of the New York City banking community, brought J.P. Morgan and New York’s other most powerful bankers the unwelcome glare of public scrutiny. A hundred years on, experts discuss what has changed and what has not.
Civilization: The West and the Rest
Event details
What was it about the civilization of Western Europe that allowed it to trump the outwardly superior empires of the Orient? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, was that the West developed six “killer applications” that the Rest lacked: competition, science, property, democracy, medicine, consumerism and work ethic. The key question today is whether or not the West has lost its monopoly on these six things. If so, Mr. Ferguson warns, we may be living through the end of Western ascendancy.
The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity
Event details
In the wake of the worst recession in recent history, pre-eminent economist Jeffrey Sachs argues that American capitalism will return to the brink of collapse if measures aren’t taken to fix it. Join us for this special evening as Professor Sachs, in conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin, argues that U.S. citizens must reach a consensus on government’s role in everyday life and on their basic values, and offers a bold and ambitious plan to change our economic system.
WWII & NYC
When war broke out in 1939, New York was a cosmopolitan, heavily immigrant city, whose people had real stakes in the global conflict and strongly held opinions about whether or not to intervene. The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 brought the U.S. into the war, and New York became the principal port of embarkation for the warfront.
In Gold We Trust? A Great Debate
Since 1971, the U.S. dollar has not been convertible into anything except small change. Like every other modern currency, it derives its value from the perceived acumen of the government that prints it. But in this era of financial insecurity, is the soaring price of gold evidence that faith in this system has wilted? Experts debate the future of our monetary system: Should the United States return to the gold standard or should it carry on by printing dollars with each successive financial crisis?
