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Then and Now: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Issues

Presented by Dr. Robert Strayer

Join Dr. Robert Strayer for a 6-part series providing historical context for contemporary issues.

This 6-part series of presentations provides some historical context for understanding a range of contemporary issues: Patriarchy, Empire, Globalization, China and the World, Democracy, and Historical Thinking. Each illustrated talk will compare earlier and more recent manifestations of a particular issue. 

Join us in person at the La Selva Beach Branch or register to attend online on Zoom.

December 6: Historical Thinking

History has long been among the major ways that humans have tried to find some order, coherence, and meaning amid the chaos and absurdity of life. Most civilizations have understood human history in cyclical
terms derived from the cycles of natural life. By contrast, Jews and Christians introduced a linear view of the past, which later became secularized as the notion of progress. As history became professionalized in the late 19th and 20th centuries, new changes and emphases emerged in historical thinking, a process that persists to this day.