Upcoming Session: January 5, 2025
Author: Robert Colby
Book: An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South
Free
All Audiences
Every Sunday
Every Sunday at 2:00 pm ET (11:00 am PT) on Zoom
Each week our hosts interview renowned scholars and discuss their acclaimed and frequently award-winning works, followed by a Q&A with the at-home audience. Please click any of the upcoming episodes to register. You can purchase any of the books featured on our bookshop.org page, for which we receive an affiliate commission.
An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Britain and the American Dream
Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Street
Students: Submit your question for the upcoming Book Breaks guest. If your question is chosen, it will be answered live on the show and you will be named History Scholar of the Week! You and your teacher will win a $50 gift certificate to the Gilder Lehrman Gift Shop.
*Your question can be about the book or the topic in general. Please submit only one question per program. Students should be in middle or high school and at least 13 years old.
James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey from Slave Trader to Abolitionist
About the book: In British North America, James Oglethorpe played a pivotal role in founding Georgia, a colony distinct for its commitment to being slave free. What motivated this unusual stance? While some historians suggest that Georgia’s policy arose from concerns that White workers couldn’t thrive in regions where slavery was entrenched, there is another intriguing possibility. Michael Thurmond points to Oglethorpe’s intellectual exchanges with Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Olaudah Equiano, two of eighteenth-century England’s most influential Black men. This narrative suggests one origin point for the interracial anti-slavery activism that breathed life into the formal abolitionist movement.
As a High School History teacher, I love Book Breaks for so many reasons. It allows my students to listen to some of the world’s preeminent History scholars from the comfort of their own homes. The History Scholar of the Week contest adds an element of excitement and recognition that I think young people in particular, can look forward to. In so many ways, Gilder Lehrman has made the latest and greatest scholarship so much more accessible to ordinary teachers and learners.
—Martina Madden, Stuyvesant High School in New York
Book Breaks is an important and novel instructional modality that high school history teachers should embrace. I see each Book Breaks author as a co-teacher for my class and a way for students to feel more connected to the historians who wrote their textbook–Give Me Liberty!–or helped them understand historical people, sources, and events.
—Glenn Whitman, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Maryland
I’m a retired teacher, now serving as a volunteer researcher for several local historical societies. I know of no other Internet offering that compares in scope to Book Breaks. I look forward to an author interview every Sunday afternoon. It’s like attending a one-hour graduate seminar each week where viewers can ask questions via the chat. It would be a shame if I had to miss a Book Breaks broadcast, but no worries . . . they’re all there on the Gilder Lehrman website to view again anytime.
-Don Gallagher, Jr., Retired Teacher in Pennsylvania
The Institute thanks Citizen Travelers, the nonpartisan civic engagement initiative of The Travelers Companies, Inc., for its support of Book Breaks.
