August 2021: Agriculture, the State, and Liberty
Please join us in August, 2021 for Agriculture, the State, and Liberty, with historian and cattle rancher Paul Schwennesen.
Pre-registration is required. Participants will need to acquire a copy of James C. Scott's Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. The complementary readings are available online.
The sessions and readings are as follows:
Session One (Thursday, August 5, noon - 1pm EDT)
James C. Scott, Against the Grain, Introduction (pages 1-36).
Session Two (Thursday, August 12, noon - 1pm EDT)
James C. Scott, Against the Grain, Chapter 1, “The Domestication of Fire, Plants, Animals, and… Us” (pages 37-67)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, Book I, Chapters 1-6
Session Three (Thursday, August 19, noon - 1pm EDT)
James C. Scott, Against the Grain, Chapter 5, “Population Control: Bondage and War”” (pages 150-182)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, (the Geneva Manuscript) Book I, Chapters 1-6
Session Four (Thursday, August 26, noon - 1pm EDT)
James C. Scott, Against the Grain, Chapter 6, “Fragility of the Early State: Collapse as Disassembly”” (pages 183-218)
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Volume I, Book III, Chapter 3, Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns, after the Fall of the Roman Empire
Extra Credit (in the Time of Covid…): “Against the Grain” Ch. 3, “Zoonoses: A Perfect Epidemiological Storm” (~24 pages)
Virtual Reading Groups
- One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare’s Plays
- December 2023: H.G. Wells, Technocracy and Liberty
- November 2023: Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War: the Gettysburg Address
- September 2023: Islam and Liberty
- September 2023: H. L. Mencken on Commerce, Culture, and Democracy
- August 2023: The Price of Power: Bring Up the Bodies and The Prince
- July 2023: Civil Society and Political Economy
- June 2023: The Challenges of Democracy in a Diverse Society
- April 2023: Understanding Reconstruction - the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
- March 2023: Foundations of Modern Environmentalism
- February 2023: Bruno Leoni: Freedom and the Law
- January 2023: Oakeshott’s Moral Vision
- January 2023: The Messiness of Progress: Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and David Hume’s Essays and Histories
- December 2022: Classical Tragedy and the World of Ideas
- December 2022: J.S. Mill “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion"
- November 2022: The Election of 1800: Jefferson v. Adams
- October 2022: Shakespeare’s First Tetralogy
- September 2022: The Evolution of American Federalism
- September 2022: Liberty and Virtue in the Axial Age
- August 2022: Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Aristocracy, Independence, and Economics
- May 2022: THE BILL OF RIGHTS: SELECT CASES IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
- April 2022: Education in a Free Society
- March 2022: Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Women
- March 2022: Ancient v Modern Liberty
- February 2022: Joseph Schumpeter’s “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy”
- January 2022: James Madison and the Conflict Between the Executive and Legislative Branches
- November 2021: Pericles' Funeral Oration
- September 2021: Celebrate Constitution Day
- August 2021: Agriculture, the State, and Liberty
- June 2021: Adam Ferguson’s History of Civil Society
- May 2021: The Colonial Origins of the Bill of Rights