Strange Hopefulness

Open Yale Courses: The Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

This post is not exactly a “sermon-start” but I think Lent is a good time for a feeling like “strange hopefulness.”

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In the spring of 2008, when Barack Obama was still running for his first term as President, Yale University professor David W. Blight recorded a 27-lecture course called “The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877.” The full course is available free on-line at Open Yale Courses.  An audio-only version is freely available as a podcast.

I just finished listening to it. It is remarkable.

By talking about the Civil War – especially what led up to it and how the country dealt with the aftermath – Blight helps us see what really moves and shapes American society, politics and institutions. As I listened, I reflected on things happening now: the Trump presidency, the January 6 mob at the Capitol or the rage over teaching a concept like “institutionalized racism.”   And I realize that these things surprise me only because I know so little about our national history.

Blight’s course is not about military battles, tactics or campaigns. It does not presume a knowledge of the Civil War era beyond what is taught in high school and/or is already part of the general fund of knowledge. I believe the course was given to undergraduates at Yale, all of which is to say, it is very accessible. And Blight is an accomplished story-teller. The nearly 27 hours of the course went by quickly and pleasurably.

I enthusiastically recommend this course. In fact, I can’t think of anything I have felt so strongly about recommending in a long time. I may go back and listen to it again. It is that rich. (Or maybe I will watch the lecture videos to get the benefit of the visual aids.)

If you listen, you may find yourself feeling disappointed over what America has been about. But Blight is clear that America hasn’t only been about one thing. It has also been about things that were noble and right, even if they have not yet won the day.  In the end, the course left me feeling a strange, hard-to-justify but real sense of hopefulness for the future.

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Photo: Professor David W. Blight,  Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University.