When we think about the Napoleonic Wars, we probably know enough to think “Napoleon” and “Waterloo,” but how many of us know that the Napoleonic conflict was also fought in America, Africa, the Ottoman Empire, Oman, Iran, India, the Philippines, and on the high seas of the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.  In the ground-breaking and highly acclaimed work, The Napoleonic Wars-A Global History, by Alexander Mikaberidze, the author addresses the immediate and lasting global impact of the Napoleonic Wars. 

Our core book and this SDG will examine the Napoleonic wars and their consequences from a military, diplomatic, economic, trade and political vantage point, both in Europe and globally,  and along the way will introduce us to many fascinating characters and to a somewhat new take on Napoleon himself.  We will study connections among events in Europe and around the globe in new and exciting ways. As the author says, “In his efforts to achieve French hegemony, Napoleon indirectly became the architect of independent South America, reshaped the Middle East, strengthened British imperial ambitions, and contributed to the rise of American power.” Just by way of example, the author explains how Napoleon’s efforts to suppress a slave revolt in Haiti led to the Louisiana Purchase; his efforts to threaten the British in India led to the invasion of Egypt; and the British desire to pre-empt Napoleon led them to Oman. The global scope of  Mikaberidze's work promises a fascinating and enlightening SDG.

One reviewer commented: “This is a 900-page book that cross-fertilises Napoleonic history with world history, and it’s fantastic. The perfect antidote to lockdown boredom.”

America, has a tradition of black writers whose autobiographies and memoirs come to define their eras from the days of slavery until today. These are autobiographies that are also pieces of literature.  We will enjoy them as literature and in the process come to understand the history and experience of Americans who are black. 

Albert Camus (1913–1960) was a journalist, editor and editorialist, playwright and director, novelist and author of short stories, political essayist and activist—and arguably, although he came to deny it, a philosopher. He ignored or opposed systematic philosophy, had little faith in rationalism, asserted rather than argued many of his main ideas, presented others in metaphors, was preoccupied with immediate and personal experience, and brooded over such questions as the meaning of life in the face of death. Although he forcefully separated himself from existentialism, Camus posed one of the twentieth century's best-known existentialist questions, which launches The Myth of Sisyphus: “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide” (MS, 3). And his philosophy of the absurd has left us with a striking image of the human fate: Sisyphus endlessly pushing his rock up the mountain only to see it roll back down each time he gains the top. Camus's philosophy found political expression in The Rebel, which along with his newspaper editorials, political essays, plays, and fiction earned him a reputation as a great moralist. It also embroiled him in conflict with his friend, Jean-Paul Sartre, provoking the major political-intellectual divide of the Cold-War era as Camus and Sartre became, respectively, the leading intellectual voices of the anti-Communist and pro-Communist left. Furthermore, in posing and answering urgent philosophical questions of the day, Camus articulated a critique of religion and of the Enlightenment and all its projects, including Marxism. In 1957 he won the Nobel Prize for literature. He died in a car accident in January, 1960, at the age of 46.

He's been gone six decades but after 2020, it feels like French literary great Albert Camus matters more than ever. Last year began with tributes for the 60th anniversary of the French existentialist icon's premature death in a car crash. Then came Covid-19. And readers locked down the world over dusted off that go-to guide, “The Plague”, to make sense of the randomly unexpected. But it's not just "The Plague" that is timeless. In all of the Nobel literature laureate's plays, essays and novels, protagonists struggle to understand where they belong in times of upheaval. Just look at today. We live in an age of alienation, identity politics, the loss of a sense of self. A bit like in "The Stranger”.

What would Camus have made of 2021 and the age of digital discourse, where powered by tribal echo chambers, we judge and sometimes sentence our peers? When Covid-19 is long behind us, "The Fall" will still be worth re-reading. 

Thousands of men contributed to the development of the Industrial Revolution in the United States.  I have chosen to submit a proposal on the life of one of these men, Andrew Carnegie, for one reason: the attitude of Carnegie to the wealth he had acquired.  Carnegie believed that the money he accumulated was not really his—it belonged to the community, and he was just holding it for the community.  It was therefore his obligation to give his fortune back to the community and to do so during his lifetime.  To my knowledge, no other major American philanthropist, from the founding of the republic to this day, held such a belief.  Such a man is worth studying.

 When Carnegie sold Carnegie Steel to a syndicate headed by J. P. Morgan in 1901 and received $225 million (and became at the time America’s richest man), he realized that it was not possible to give away the money during his lifetime.  By this time he had a large organization devoted to founding and supporting libraries, so that he had time to pursue other avenues of interest.  Promoting world peace became his primary goal, to which end he established several trusts.  The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, among others, remains active to this day.

Carnegie Mellon University and Carnegie Hall bear his name (as does a major avenue in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio).

            David Nasaw has written a comprehensive biography, called simply Andrew Carnegie (2006).  It covers all aspects of his life including his young years as a telegrapher, his growth into one of the leading industrialists of the country, and his development into one of the country’s leading philanthropists.  We will read about his involvement in the infamous Homestead Steel Strike as well as possible partial responsibility for the Johnstown Flood.  At the time of the Spanish-American War he became one of the country’s leading anti-imperialists (along with his exact contemporary, Mark Twain).  His attachment to the United Kingdom and, particularly, his native Scotland are well covered, are as his many well-regarded books and articles, mainly on wealth and peace.

            The book is 801 pages, so we will be reading about fifty-seven pages a week, a reasonable amount for a dense biography.  We won’t have to worry about not having enough to talk about every week.

This SDG examines 10 exceptional films made by African-American directors, women and men, many of which were a struggle to make due to the film industry's structural racism and sexism.  Yet these filmmakers persevered and produced lasting films. We'll be looking at films from two fruitful periods-- the 1990s when politicized young people at film schools like Julie Dash and Spike Lee created independent classics, and, recently, when Black activism opened up new gates for a blossoming of directorial talent. The films range in genre: from family and neighborhood drama, to comedy, to horror. Race, of course, is present, explicitly or implicitly, as well as other concerns-- gender, class, capitalism, police and gang violence, poverty, the role of the artist.   Some questions to ponder:  What differences in political stances do we see among these films? Without the white gaze, what do these artists bring to film that's new? 

This is a Film Studies course, with emphasis on scene analysis: directing, acting, cinematography (camera movement, framing, lighting), editing,  music etc.  We are interested in how the art of film expresses each director's unique handling of his or her stories.

This SDG seeks to examine the unspoken caste system in America  and how a hierarchy of human divisions shapes us.   The core book is the highly acclaimed Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabelle Wilkerson (Pulitzer Prize winning  and best selling author of The Warmth of Other Sons.)  Caste has been deemed in the New York Times  review  an "instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far...one of the most powerful nonfiction books...ever encountered." Wilkerson gives a masterful and lyrical  portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores through an immersive, deeply researched narrative about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. 

This SDG seeks to examine the unspoken caste system in America and how a hierarchy of human divisions shapes us. The core book is the highly acclaimed Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabelle Wilkerson (Pulitzer Prize winning and best selling author of The Warmth of Other Sons.) Caste has been deemed in the New York Times review an "instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far...one of the most powerful nonfiction books...ever encountered." Wilkerson gives a masterful and lyrical portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores through an immersive, deeply researched narrative about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. 

This SDG will be concerned with the science of climate change.  We will examine projections of its future impacts, and evaluate the consequences of climate change to date.  Our two recently published core books are: “The Uninhabitable Earth”, by David Wallace-Wells;  and “How To Avoid A Climate Disaster”, by Bill Gates.  They are very different in approach. 

“The Uninhabitable Earth” is one scary book.  It is also meticulously researched and superbly written.   

“It is one of the few books that doesn’t sugarcoat the horror,”  -  William Vollmann, National Book Award winner

“David Wallace-Wells argues that the impacts of climate change will be much greater than most people realize, and he’s right.” - Elizabeth Kolbert, author of “The Sixth Extinction”.

“We are only just entering our brave new world, one that collapses below us as soon as we set foot on it.”  - David Wallace Wells

“How To Avoid A Climate Disaster”, by Bill Gates, is comparatively upbeat.  It is solution oriented, and written by a very smart and knowledgeable guy.  Gates describes himself as an optimist.  He approaches climate change as a problem to solve, and provides an outline as to how to do this.  Gates writes with clarity and precision.  “How To Avoid A Climate Disaster” is written to be comprehensible to any interested and intelligent reader. 

Climate change is a prominent part of current public discourse.  Therefore, we will set aside 10 to 15 minutes of each session to discuss matters related to climate change that have been reported in the news or from some other source.

Computers and software impact our lives, our economy, even international relations and war (e.g., cyberattacks), affecting us deeply, often without our thinking about it. "Artificial Intelligence" has brought attention to advances in computer technology in a particular way, with warnings AI will let computers at least take most jobs if not become our master. But computers have long been at the core of automation, improving productivity, and providing services such as web search that few would do without. What are the tradeoffs?

The core book takes the position that AI is part of a long-term trend in the development of "computer intelligence," a broader view of computer capabilities than AI. This view allows a better understanding of what role AI will play, what led up to AI, and what to expect of future evolution of computer intelligence. What will it do for us, and what will it do to us?

The book is directed at a layman audience and does not require a technical background. The coordinator is the author of the core book and active in the area, most recently organizing a "Bots and Assistants" virtual conference. THIS SDG HAS BEEN GIVEN PREVIOUSLY, AND IS THUS A REPEAT. IT WILL BE UPDATED WITH CONTINUING DEVELOPMENTS IN THE AREA. 

When Black Death visited the city of Florence in 1348, those who could leave the city did. And it is just such a journey that Boccaccio in his classic The Decameron masterfully describes. Ten upper class young ladies and young gentlemen journey leisurely out of Florence, stopping at well-appointed chateaus, surrounded by the beauty of nature. There, in these bucolic settings, they take turns in telling one hundred fascinating stories. These stories are about kings and dukes and wealthy merchants, but also about common city dwellers and rustics of the countryside. The stories moralize; praise the wise and virtuous and disparage the foolish and wicked. The work glories in human ingenuity, showing that even the most daunting conditions can be overcome by human creativity. But mostly the work is about love and its many varieties. Those who join us will not only be entertained by these tales, but also see how people separated from us by seven centuries were essentially not different from us.

If you believe slavery and white privilege are the underlying causes of our racial problems in America, this SDG will give you a different perspective to consider.  If you do not believe this, this SDG will give you ammunition to support your views.

The core book is by Thomas Sowell, a highly esteemed, economist and Hoover Institution Fellow.  He is also black, 90 years old, and has seen it all.  He provides research and facts to support his contention that discrimination is not the cause of racial disparities.

The SDG will supplement the core book with articles and book excerpts from writers such as Victor Davis Hansen and Walter E. Williams. (Hanson is a white classicist and historian. Williams is a black conservative economist, and Sowell dedicates our core book to him.)

From Slavery to "The Smithsonian"

The Enduring Legacy of African-American Art

Welcome to the powerful world of African-American art.  From the tragic reality of slavery to the stepping-out of the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, our SDG will traverse the enduring beauty of African-American art.  Moving forward in time, we will learn about the inclusion of African-American Art on the public stage via the Federal Works Projects, and the first openings of museums that featured the art of Black Americans.  During this expansion, the AfriCobra Coalition gave us the first major art collective for African-Americans, thereby ensuring gallery and museum representation for Black artists.

The 50's-60's brought us the Black Power and Civil Rights movement's.  During the 70's we will see how Black artists demanded their rightful place in American culture.  While the 80's belonged to Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was the first black man to achieve superstar status in the art world.  The Nineties were for the elevation and dominance of Black Women such as Kara Walker and Wangchi Mutu.  While the 21st Century heralds the welcoming of Black Artists, such as Kerry James Marshall into the pantheon of World Artists. 

Join us as we explore and learn about the enduring artistic greatness of African-American painters, photographers, and sculptors. 

The years following World War II were decades of conjugal turmoil. Many women who managed to work and start careers during the war went back to being housewives. As their college attendance rates shot up, however, and as exposure to alternative life-styles increased, this period also became the gestation time for a new wave of the women's movement that began to crest in the late '60s and early '70s.  

Our SDG concentrates on three authors who, while writing from a male perspective, capture some of the anguish experienced by conflicted women and daunted men. Philip Roth dubbed John Cheever (1912 - 1982) "an enchanted realist". Much the same can be said of Richard Yates (1926 - 1992), celebrated for Revolutionary Road (a novel made into a movie after his death, starring Kate Winslet) as well as for his lapidary short stories. While less well-known in his lifetime, John Williams (1922 -1994) achieved posthumous fame with the revival of Stoner, his one-of-a-kind tale of Midwestern melancholy.

"These stories," John Cheever wrote in the final collection of his own tales, "seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat."  Variations on nostalgia in this vein can also be found in the work of Yates and Williams.

Another commonality is more subtle: all of our authors share a male sensibility keyed largely to a pre-'60s era, reflected in the stoicism and pathos of their tuning-fork prose. They all have a feel for what's askew behind the conformity and complacency of their contemporaries, including themselves. They all were alcoholics. They stumbled erratically through their relationships with women. Such themes provide the focus of our SDG. 

“Irving Berlin (1888-1989) has no place in American music, he is American music,” wrote Jerome Kern about the composer of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band, “God Bless America,” and White Christmas.” In a career that spanned nine decades, Berlin wrote some 1500 tunes. James Kaplan’s new biography (2019) “Irving Berlin: New York Genius” captures Berlin as he grows up in New York City as a self -made man and as a witty, wily, tough Jewish immigrant. With this core book, that has excellent reviews from the New York Times, we will explore Irving Berlin’s life and music. What motivated his songs? How did his music change America?

James Baldwin (1924–1987), the American novelist, poet, and playwright, was an acclaimed essayist from the 1950’s through the 1980’s. Forty years later, his essays still resonate. In the month this SDG description was written, Baldwin was quoted in the New York Times and the New York Review of Books. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement refer to Baldwin. His ideas are examined and explained by scholars today, in essays and books, because Baldwin continues to be relevant to us.

Baldwin's ideas and insights adjusted over time. Notes of a Native Son, a collection of early essays, contained some of the hopes of Martin Luther King and others. The essays a decade later, including No Name in the Street and The Fire Next Time, were inspired by the rise of Black Power. Baldwin did not reject his earlier writings; his advocacy changed emphasis.

In this SDG we will read and discuss Baldwin’s essays from a Library of Congress collection edited by Toni Morrison. We will read excerpts from a seminal 2020 book Begin Again by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. that assesses Baldwin’s influence here and now. We will watch the documentary I Am Not Your Negro that is based on Baldwin’s words. We will watch selected short films of Baldwin’s interviews and speeches, including the famous 1965 “debate” with William Buckley at the Cambridge University Union which itself invited commentary.

Join this SDG and discuss with us how James Baldwin’s ideas and sensibilities are pertinent to today, and speak to the way we live in this country.

John Maynard Keynes had an enormous impact on the 20th century.  He not only developed the economic theory that bears his name (and which radically altered the study of economics), he also spoke out strongly against authoritarian governments, and he believed that art and ideas could conquer war and deprivation.  From the peace conference at Versailles in 1919 to the establishment of an international monetary system at Bretton Woods (1944), Keynes stood at the heart of Anglo-American finances, waging an incessant battle against the rigid conservative ideas of bankers and academic economists.  Two of his books, The Economic Consequences of the Peace and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, greatly influenced the way people and governments thought.  In Keynes' life we can see much of the intellectual, political and economic history of the 20th century. This biography situates Keynes’ economic theories in his overall political and philosophical worldview and situates Keynes himself in the Bloomsbury art and intellectual milieu.  Carter also discusses the long reach of Keynes’ ideas in the aftermath of his death, in 1946,  to our present day politics . 

Los Angeles in the sixties was a hot bed of political and social upheaval. The core book is entitled Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the 60's  by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener  which tells the compelling story of this important decade in Los Angeles history. The city was a launchpad for the Freedom Rides and the struggle for fair housing. The city's history includes the 1965 Watts rebellion and its repercussions, the development of the Black Muslims, Black Power, the Black Panther Party, US and the political competition and repression that followed.  It is time to look at the  Eldridge Cleaver for President campaign, the Peace and Freedom Party, and the struggle to  "Free Angela Davis!" Let us not forget Tom Bradley's campaign for Mayor and the  changes it brought to the political landscape.  A movement to  Ban the Bomb became a struggle to Stop the War, draft resistance and the war coming home.  Chicano power arose and asserted itself in many forms including  the Chicano Moratorium. Asian-Americans organized and  made their presence known. L.A. was also a focus of the struggle by women in many forms and for gay liberation. It was a  capital of California counterculture. What is a discussion of L.A. in the sixties without talking about KPFK , the L.A. Free Press, and the Free Clinic?  It is  time to look at this tumultuous decade as it played out in Los Angeles. 

Musashi is a Japanese epic novel written by Eiji Yoshikawa in the 1930s. It is a fictionalized account of the life of Miyamoto Musashi, author of The Book of Five Rings and arguably the most renowned Japanese swordsman who ever lived. Set in feudal Japan of the 1600s, Musashi is a novel in the best tradition of Japanese story telling. It is a living story, subtle and imaginative, teeming with memorable characters, many of them historical. Interweaving themes of unrequited love, misguided revenge, filial piety and dedication to the Way of the Samurai, it depicts vividly a world most Westerners know only vaguely. Full of gusto and humor, it has an epic quality and universal appeal. In essence, this book relates the journey of a man who dedicates his life to self-improvement and self-discipline, and how he reaches enlightenment.

There’s plenty of action and adventure in the life of a samurai swordsman, but we also glimpse the lives of everyday people, and it’s a thoroughly engrossing read. Broken into sections named after the elemental forces from Earth, Fire, Wind or the last section, The Perfect Light, each division illuminates some aspect of Musashi’s life. If you want to step back into samurai Japan, look no further than the pages of Musashi.

Translated by Charles S. Terry in the 1980s, the book is 970 pages long. In the final three weeks of the sdg, we will discuss The Samurai Trilogy, the three films of the book directed by Hiroshi Inagaki in Japanese with English subtitles. Originally released in the 1950s, they were remastered by the Criterion Collection in 2012. The first of these films won an academy award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1955. The Samurai Trilogy follows the novel in concentrating on Musashi’s life from his midteens, when he left the village of Miyamoto, until his defeat of Kojiro Sasaki in combat on Ganryu Island, when Musashi was twenty-nine. Starring Toshiro Mifune, the acting is outstanding; the color cinematography is glorious.

The book is still in print and is available at Amazon in hardcover, paperback, audio, and on Kindle. It has received over 1100 five star ratings at Amazon. The films are available for purchase at Amazon and for rent with Amazon Prime and elsewhere. They can also be streamed with a subscription to the HBOMax app.

            One of the most important surviving texts from the Greco-Roman world is Plutarch’s Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans, which has provided material about Greek and Roman leaders to writers and thinkers from Shakespeare to the present day.  Plutarch was born in Greece about 50 c.e. and died about 120 c.e.  He was devoted to antiquities and traditional religion, and served for decades as a priest at Delphi. 

            Among his many books, Plutarch is best known for his Lives which has been at the center of European education for five centuries.  He believed history should be studied for its ethical lessons, so he placed the lives of famous Greeks and Romans beside each other – like Demosthenes and Cicero – and then wrote a brief comparison of their virtues and vices. (Some of the lives and the comparisons are lost.)  His book has been used since the Renaissance for moral instruction.  The 1579 century English translation was used by Shakespeare as his source for his Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra.   Plutarch’s Lives became especially important for periods or personalities for which other historical sources are lacking.  Hence he can almost be said to have “invented” in his Life of Antony the image of Cleopatra, later used so powerfully by Shakespeare.

            This SDG will examine a selection of the Lives both for the historical content and the moral lessons Plutarch was trying to teach.  

The years 900 to 200 BCE were identified as the Axial Age by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers (The Origin and Goal of History) During that time, in four distinct regions of the world, four great spiritual and intellectual traditions came into being: Confucianism and Daoism in China; Hinduism and Buddhism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece. All these traditions had in common the core doctrine that it was not what you believed that mattered but how you behaved.  Ritual became less important than ethical behavior.  Morality was placed at the center of spiritual life.  Jaspers wrote:  "What is new about this age is that man becomes conscious of Being as a whole, of himself and his limitations. . . .   In this age were born the fundamental categories within which we still think today . . . Hitherto unconsciously accepted ideas, customs and conditions were subjected to examination, questioned and liquidated."    Karen Armstrong, revisits and reexamines these traditions, beginning with a close look at the pre-Axial religions of early antiquity.  Her thesis is that the insights of the Axial Age have never been surpassed, and she urges us to look back to them for guidance. 

Silicon Valley Innovators has been a recent hot topic because  of the contributions Companies, R&D Centers and Universities have made to advance  technology. However, we must also remember that much of the early development occurred in Tech Hubs on the East Coast such a IBM in New York, DEC in Maynard, MA (along the famous Route 128), Control Data (Minneapolis) and Bell Labs in New Jersey. The development coming from this Tech Hub have changed our life's and lifestyle. Some for good, others more nefarious.

A confluence of people, Universities and entrepreneurial drive have made Silicon Valley (which includes essentially the entire West Coast and Austin, TX) have wrought a world wide change that has not been seen since the late Industrial Revolution.

Who are these people? What were their Visions? What makes a region so successful? Will it continue? All good topics for discussion since they have impacted us so significantly. 

As part of the above question we should ask why the US is good at early development but manufacturing and further advancement are made in Asia?

              Communism was (and is) a major political movement of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  While Russia, its foremost promoter, has turned away from it, Communism is still said by China to be its political system and there are Communist outposts in North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba.  Indeed, there remain advocates of Communism among the poor and some intellectuals to this day.  One cannot understand world history since 1917 without a knowledge of what Communism promised and what it delivered.

              This SDG will explore the history of Communism, including the thinkers who advocated Communism, the reasons that their advocacy resonated with leaders and the populace in many places, the Russian revolution, the spreading of Communism after World War II, the Chinese revolution, the revolts in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dismembering of the Soviet Union and the persistence of Communism in China.  The emphasis will be on how Communism has been practiced, rather than the details of its theories.  Among the questions we will address are the following:  Why was the movement attractive to so many?  What were its successes?  What were its failures?  Is Communism fatally internally inconsistent or at odds with human nature?  Have its leaders ultimately been  good for the movement or did they insure its downfall?  Did those leaders practice Communism or simply use its rhetoric as an excuse for the exercise of power?  Has the political system proposed by Marx ever been implemented?  Was the Cold War—serious battling, threats and arms buildups between the West and Communist countries—inevitable?  Is it likely that there will be a resurgence of Communist principles in developed or undeveloped countries in the future?

              Our core book will be “The Rise and Fall of Communism” by Archie Brown.  It provides  comprehensive history along with perceptive comments.  Of course, there are thousands of books and on-line articles on every aspect of Communism and its leaders.   

Ireland is a beautiful land with a tumultuous history.  Over the millennia it has been shaped by waves of immigration and invasion bringing new languages, faiths and cultures.  In this SDG we will examine many of these migrations and invasions, particularly those of the Celts, Vikings, Normans, Scots and English. 

As part of our journey we will learn of the Celtic migration to Ireland; he origin of the five Irish kingdoms of Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Meith; the significance of Irish monks and monasteries not only to Ireland but to Europe in general; how the Vikings came to Ireland and why they stayed; how the Normans came to Ireland and why they stayed; the religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants and with each other; the centuries long efforts of the English to dominate the Irish; the Scots who emigrated from western Scotland to northern Ireland; the famines, economic problems and religious conflicts that led both Catholics and Protestants to emigrate to North America; the fight for Irish self-government and independence from England; how six counties of Ulster remaining a part of the United Kingdom led to the "Troubles;" and the challenge faced by both parts of Ireland in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries.

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