The Washington History Seminar (WHS) series is held weekly on Mondays (unless otherwise noted) during the Fall and Spring academic semesters. The series is co-sponsored by the American Historical Association and the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. Recordings of each event are posted to the WHS YouTube channel.  If you have questions about the seminars, please email Rachel Wheatley at rwheatley@historians.org. 

Spring 2023 Semester

"The Absolutely Indispensable Man: Ralph Bunche, the United Nations, and the Fight to End Empire" 
January 23, 2023
Panelists: Kal Raustiala (Univ. of California, LA); Jessica Pearson (Macalester Coll.)

"Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons that Nearly Destroyed NATO"
January 30, 2023
Panelists: Susan Colbourn (Duke Univ.); Giordana Pulcini (Wilson Center); Aaron Bateman (George Washington Univ.) 

"Kennan: A Life between Worlds"
February 6, 2023
Panelists: Frank Costigliola (Univ. of Connecticut); Beverly Gage (Yale Univ.); Barbara Keys (Durham Univ.)

"When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America"
February 13, 2023
Panelists: Heather Hendershot (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Samantha Barbas (Univ. of Buffalo); Michael Kazin (Georgetown Univ.)

"Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy"
Feburary 23, 2023*
Panelists: Jeremi Suri (Univ. of Texas at Austin); Chandra Manning (Georgetown Univ.); Michael Fitzgerald (St. Olaf Coll.) 

"Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia"
February 27, 2023
Panelists: Carolyn Eisenberg (Hofstra Univ.); Pierre Asselin (San Diego State Univ.); Frederik Logevall (Harvard Univ.)

"America's Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life"
March 6, 2023
Panelists: Claire Rydell Arcenas (Univ. of Montana); Leslie Butler (Dartmouth Coll.); Holly Brewer (Univ. of Maryland)

"Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq"
March 13, 2023
Panelists: Melvyn Leffler (Univ. of Virginia); Kori Schake (American Enterprise Institute); Robert Kagan (Brookings Institution)

"The Ends of Modernization: Nicaragua and the United States in the Cold War Era"
March 20, 2023
Panelists: David Johnson Lee (Temple Univ.); Cynthia J. Aronson (Wilson Center); Eline van Ommen (Univ. of Leeds)

"Victorious in Defeat: The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-Shek, China, 1887-1975"
March 27, 2023
Panelists: Alexander V. Pantsov (Capital Univ.); Kelly Hammond (Univ. of Arkansas)

"Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961-1975"
April 3, 2023
Panelists: Natalia Telepneva (Univ. of Strathclyde, Glasgow); Sergey Radchenko (Johns Hopkins Univ.); Daniela Richterova (King's Coll., London)

"Adam Smith's America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism"
April 10, 2023
Panelists: Glory M. Liu (Harvard Univ.); Sophia Rosenfeld (Univ. of Pennsylvania); Angus Burgin (Johns Hopkins Univ.)

"A Woman's Life Is a Human Life: My Mother, Our Neighbor, and the Journey from Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Justice"
April 17, 2023
Panelists: Felicia Kornbluh (Univ. of Vermont); Kaaryn Gustafson (Univ. of California, Irvine)

"Ploughshares and Swords: India's Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War"
April 24, 2023
Panelists: Jayita Sarkar (Univ. of Glasgow); David Holloway (Stanford Univ.); Tanvi Madan (Brookings Institution) 

"Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power"
May 1, 2023
Panelists: Jefferson Cowie (Vanderbilt Univ.); Mia Bay (Univ. of Pennsylvania); Alex Lichtenstein (Indiana Univ.)

"The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire"
May 8, 2023
Panelists: Joseph Sassoon (Georgetown Univ.)

"The Wounded World: W.E.B. DuBois and the First World War"
May 15, 2023
Panelists: Chad Williams (Brandeis Univ.); David W. Blight (Yale Univ.); Michelle Moyd (Indiana Univ.)

"The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia"
May 22, 2023
Panelists: Sheila Miyoshi Jager (Oberlin Coll.); Sue Mi Terry (Wilson Center)

*Denotes an irregular seminar date (not held on a Monday)