By Topic
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Lectures curated around NOVA: Becoming Human that explores how new discoveries are transforming views of our earliest ancestors. How did we become "human?" This program investigates explosive discoveries, transforming the picture of how our ancestors started on the road that led to us - the creative and "behaviorally modern" people of today. Shot as discoveries were unearthed... -
Lectures curated around American Experience: Civilan Conservation Corps, a New Deal work program that combined conservation, renewal, awareness and appreciation of the nation's natural resources. As part of the New Deal legislation proposed by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), the CCC was designed to aid relief of the unemployment resulting from the Great Depression... -
Lectures curated around Independent Lens: Power Paths that explores energy through the eyes of Native Americans. This film reveals their quest to tap wind, solar, biomass and other power sources for their communities and cities across the country. From the Lakota Lands across the Great Plains to the Navajo and Hopi desert lands of the Southwest, tribes face fierce opposition in... -
Lectures by and about Native Americans that pay tribute to the rich ancestry and traditions of Native Americans. -
Lectures curated around the Boston Book Festival celebrating the power of words to stimulate, agitate, unite, delight and inspire. LOTS MORE COMING SOON! -
Lectures curated around the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, which signaled the beginning of the end of Communism in Europe. This anniversary series includes lectures on Berlin and Germany, on human rights and freedom, as well as talks by some of the journalists who covered the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In the News:
- Haruhiko Kuroda on Asia and the Global Financial Crisis
- Deborah Rodriguez on Resisting the Taliban
- Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on US-Pakistani Relations
- Sarah Chaye on President Karzai Post Taliban
- Marshall Goldman on Russia
- New England Journal of Medicine Panel on Health Care Reform
- Manouchehr Mottaki on Iran's Nuclear Program
- Daniel Pipes and Amy Dockser Marcus on the Arab-Israeli Conflict
- Lectures by Nobel Laureates
Boston Public Library Lectures
Boston, MA
Boston Public Library (BPL) was the first large free municipal library in the United States. The present Copley Square location has been home to the Library since 1895, when architect Charles Follen McKim completed his "palace for the people." Between 1870 and 1900, twenty-two additional Branches began serving communities throughout Boston's diverse neighborhoods. In 1972 the Library expanded its Copley Square location with the opening of an addition designed by Philip Johnson. Today, the McKim building houses the BPL's vast research collection and the Johnson building holds the circulating collection of the general library and serves as headquarters for the Boston Public Library's 26 branch libraries. In addition to its 6.1 million books, the library boasts over 1.2 million rare books and manuscripts, a wealth of maps, musical scores and prints. Among its large collections, the BPL holds several first edition folios by William Shakespeare, original music scores from Mozart to Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf;" and, in its rare book collection, the personal library of John Adams. Over 2.2 million patrons visit the BPL each year, many in pursuit of research material, others looking for an afternoon's reading, still others for the magnificent and unique art and architecture.

