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Matthew Dallek — “Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security”

Gelman Library, George Washington University 2130 H Street NW, Washington

The National Churchill Library and Center welcomes Matthew Dallek for a discussion of his book Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security, which was awarded the 2017 Henry Adams Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government. Dallek traces the birth of homeland security to an epic battle during World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt’s vision of a wartime New Deal was pitted against New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s campaign to militarize millions of civilians to keep Americans safe from air raids, chemical and biological attacks, spies, and even land invasion. Dallek argues that Americans […]

Courtney Fullilove — “The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture”

Woodrow Wilson Center, 6th Floor Moynihan Board Room 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington

While the contemporary United States is a patchwork of large-scale monocultures, this talk will explore unrealized alternatives, from a Midwestern prairie harvested for production of botanic medicines to an American South populated by smallholders cultivating tea. Understanding why these futures were unrealized, and at what cost, conjures the histories of diverse people, plants, and knowledge on the move. Weaving together the lives of German and Russian immigrant farmers, prairie plant collectors, and Ohio pharmacists, Courtney Fullilove recasts the amber waves of grain immortalized in “America the Beautiful” not as an inherited Eden, but rather a novel landscape constructed by transplanted […]

Richard Florida — “The New Urban Crisis”

Enrique V. Iglesias Auditorium, Inter-American Development Bank 1330 New York Avenue NW, Washington

Richard Florida will present his new book, The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It (Basic Books, 2017). Florida is University Professor and Director of Cities at the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, and Distinguished Fellow at NYU's Schack Institute of Real Estate. He is senior editor at The Atlantic, editor-at-large for The Atlantic's CityLab, and founder of the Creative Class Group. Books will be donated to the audience and will be signed by the author. Register for this event […]