Francis Fukuyama presents: In the Realm of the Last Man Harvey C. Mansfield (Main)
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Francis Fukuyama—Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the author of The End of History and the Last Man—for a discussion of his new memoir, In the Realm of the Last Man.
More than a conventional memoir, In the Realm of the Last Man is personal history as political history—the story of a life that illuminates the troubled fate of democracy and liberalism over the last fifty years. Registration is required.
Daniel Pollack-Pelzner presents Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Main)
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Daniel Pollack-Pelzner—cultural historian, theater critic, and professor of English and theater at Portland State University—for a discussion of his highly anticipated biography of Broadway superstar Lin-Manuel Miranda, titled Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist. He will be joined in conversation by Dani Snyder-Young—esteemed Northeastern University theater professor, who appears in Lin-Manuel Miranda as his director for the Wesleyan production of Jesus Christ Superstar that launched him into collegiate superstardom.
Registration is required.
RESCHEDULED Defying the Crown in Early Cambridge: The 1664 Petition Campaign and Grassroots Constitutionalism
This event was rescheduled from May 22 and will now take place on May 28.
The new king Charles II sent royal commissioners to New England in 1664 in order to pressure colonists into compliance with his metropolitan agenda. When these royal commissioners tried to claim full authority over local courts and militias, Cambridge inhabitants were among the first to act in defiance. Their grassroots petition campaign drew on the experience of the English civil wars and pointed the way forward to the American Revolution.
Adrian Chastain Weimer is a Professor of History at Providence College and is currently a Long-term Fellow at the John Carter Brown Library. She is the author of A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) and Martyrs' Mirror: Persecution and Holiness in Early New England (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Stephen Greenblatt presents: Dark Renaissance (Main)
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Dr. Stephen Greenblatt—Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, general editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, and the author of fourteen books including The Swerve, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award—for a discussion of his new book Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival. He will be joined in conversation by Neel Mukherjee—author of four novels, including The Lives of Others, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Registration is required.
Panel Discussion: The Practice of Wisdom (Main)
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Davíd Carrasco, the Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University, Arthur Kleinman, the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, Stephanie Paulsell, Professor Emerita at Harvard Divinity School, and Michael Puett, the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology at Harvard, for a discussion of their new book, The Practice of Wisdom: Five Quests. They will be joined in conversation by Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts—Minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University. Registration is required.
Nicholas Epley presents: A Little More Social (Main)
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcomes Nicholas Epley—John Templeton Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and faculty director of the Roman Family Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business—for a discussion of his new book, A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection. He will be joined in conversation by Daniel Gilbert—Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, New York Times bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness, and host and co-writer of the award-winning NOVA television series This Emotional Life. Registration is required.
Robert J. Sampson presents: Marked by Time: How Social Change Has Transformed Crime and the Life Trajectories of Young Americans (Main)
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Robert J. Sampson—Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University, Affiliated Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences—for a discussion of his new book Marked by Time: How Social Change Has Transformed Crime and the Life Trajectories of Young Americans. He will be joined in conversation by Robert D. Putnam—Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy, Emeritus at Harvard University and recipient of the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. Registration is required.
Theaster Gates and Henry Louis Gates Jr. present: Another View (Main)
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Theaster Gates—award-winning artist, professor at the University of Chicago, and Director of Artists Initiatives at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College Museum of Art—and Henry Louis Gates Jr.—Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and an Emmy, Du Pont, and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, and institution builder—for a discussion of their new book Another View: The Vibrant World of Contemporary Black Artists, co-edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., featuring Theaster Gates. Registration is required.
Brandon M. Terry presents: Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope (Main)
Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Brandon M. Terry—John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Codirector of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research—for a discussion of his new book Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement. He will be joined in conversation by Danielle Allen—James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project-Learn at the Harvard Graduate School of Education—and Michael Sandel—Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University and the bestselling author of The Tyranny of Merit and Democracy’s Discontent.
Registration is required.