Yong Chen, professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, discusses the historical forces that turned Chinese food, a cuisine once widely rejected by Americans, into one of the most popular ethnic foods in the U.S.

Miraculous Things: The Culture of Consumerism in the Renaissance

Feb 8th, 2018 44m 46s

Martha Howell, professor of history at Columbia University and the R. Stanton Avery Distinguished Fellow, discusses the meaning attached to goods—both humble and luxurious—during the Renaissance. The era is considered by many to be the first ag

Decoding the Book: Printing & the Birth of Secrecy

Jan 25th, 2018 54m 5s

Bill Sherman, director of the Warburg Institute in London, delivers the inaugural annual lecture honoring David Zeidberg, recently retired Avery Director of the Library. In his presentation, Sherman traces the modern field of cryptography back

Christian Origins in Early Modern Europe: The Birth of a New Kind of History

Dec 7th, 2017 59m 6s

In the 16th century, the unified Latin Christianity of the Middle Ages broke apart. New Protestant churches and a reformed Catholic church created new theologies, new liturgies, and new ways of imagining what early Christian life and worship we

The Florentine Codex and the Herbal Tradition: Unknown versus Known?

Dec 5th, 2017 59m 11s

The 16th-century ethnographic study known as the Florentine Codex included a richly detailed account of natural history of the New World. In this lecture, Alain Touwaide—historian of medicine, botany, and medicinal plants—compares the Codex and

Did Early-Modern Schoolmasters Foment Sedition?

Nov 17th, 2017 49m 9s

Markku Peltonen, professor of history at the University of Helsinki and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, discusses why the famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) placed the blame for the English Civil War and Revolution

The Lords Proprietors: Land and Power in 17th-Century America

Nov 8th, 2017 55m 48s

If England’s King Charles II and his courtiers had had their way, most of eastern North America would have been the personal property of about a dozen men who dreamed of wielding virtually absolute power over their vast domains. Daniel K. Richt

The Originality of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”

Nov 1st, 2017 50m 14s

David Loewenstein, Erle Sparks Professor of English and Humanities at Penn State, discusses the daring originality of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” This year marks the 350th anniversary of the great poem’s first publication in 1667. This talk is pa

Seeing and Knowing: Visions of Latin American Nature, ca. 1492–1859

Oct 17th, 2017 57m 38s

Historian Daniela Bleichmar, co-curator of the exhibition “Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin,” discusses the surprising and little-known story of the pivotal role that Latin America played in the pursuit of

Potosí, Silver, and the Coming of the Modern World

Apr 12th, 2017 1h 5m

John Demos, Samuel Knight Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University and the Ritchie Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington, presents an account of Potosí, the great South American silver mine and boomtown that galvanized imperial Spain i

A Satire of the Three Estates: Renaissance Scotland’s Best Kept Secret?

Feb 25th, 2017 41m 33s

Greg Walker, Regius Professor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, discusses Sir David Lyndsay’s remarkable play, “A Satire of the Three Estates”, probably the most dramatically and politically radical piece of theater produced

Colonial Dreams: A French Botanist’s Encounter with Africa in the 1750s

Jan 25th, 2017 52m 38s

Mary Terrall, professor of the history of science at UCLA, discusses French botanist Michel Adanson, who spent almost five years in Senegal in the 1750s. Terrall reconstructs Adanson’s sojourn in a French trading post, where he studied African

Sex in the City

Dec 7th, 2016 56m 49s

Margo Todd, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and the Fletcher Jones Foundation Distinguished Fellow, examines the campaign of the mostly lay judiciaries of the Calvinist Scottish kirk, or church, to imp

Mapping the English Village

Nov 10th, 2016 1h 1m

Steve Hindle, W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at The Huntington, explains how one particular map might be used to reconstruct who did what for a living, and who lived next door to whom, in 17th-century rural society.Recorded Nov.

Rebels, Runaways, Pirates, and Slaves: Strange Adventures of Henry Pitman

May 11th, 2016 38m 55s

Carla Gardina Pestana delivers this Society of Fellows lecture at The Huntington. In 1685, after he supported the invasion of the Duke of Monmouth, who aimed to take the throne from his uncle, James II, the “Chyrurgion” (surgeon) Henry Pitman w

Being Elizabethan: How Elizabethans Made Sense of Their World

Apr 7th, 2016 55m 44s

Norman Jones, professor of history at Utah State University, talks about his decades-long effort to understand how English men and women in the Elizabethan era perceived the structures, meanings, and purposes of life.

Oliver Cromwell’s Consolation Prize? The English Conquest of Jamaica

Mar 3rd, 2016 42m 38s

Carla Gardina Pestana, professor of history at UCLA, will argue for the importance of Cromwell's effort and its outcome. Oliver Cromwell got only to Jamaica despite sending a massive expeditionary force to conquer the Spanish West Indies. This

The Men Who Lost America

Feb 12th, 2016 52m 10s

Andrew O’Shaughnessy, vice president of Monticello and professor of history at the University of Virginia, dispels the incompetence myth surrounding the loss of the American colonies and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were

Science and Sociability in the French Revolution

Jan 14th, 2016 1h 12m

Dena Goodman, professor of history at the University of Michigan, discusses a group of young men whose passion for science guided them through the turmoil of the French Revolution and into leadership roles in the decades that followed.

William Smith: The Man, His Map, and the Democratization of Geology

Dec 9th, 2015 1h

Simon Winchester, author of The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology, tells the extraordinary story of British surveyor, William Smith.

A Neglected Document (Really!) of the Salem Witch Trials

Nov 20th, 2015 51m 8s

Clive Holmes, emeritus fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, will provide a context for the 1692 determination by the Puritan clergymen of the Cambridge Association concerning spectral evidence in witchcraft trials. This talk is part of the Cro

Thomas Cromwell and the Gifts of the Tudor Court

Nov 6th, 2015 49m 31s

Felicity Heal, emeritus fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, discusses the importance of gifts and patronage in the lethally competitive court of Henry VIII. This talk is part of the Crotty Lecture series at The Huntington.

An Accursed Family: the Scottish Crisis and the Creation of the Black Legend of the House of Stuart, 1650–1652

Oct 16th, 2015 51m 48s

Thomas Cogswell, professor of history at UC Riverside reconstructs the polemical campaign waged in the early 1650s by John Milton and other republicans to destroy the personal and political reputation of Charles II. This is part of the Distingu

Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

May 7th, 2015 53m 40s

Fashion historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell discusses one of the most exciting, controversial, and extravagant periods in the history of fashion: the reign of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in 18th-century France. She explores the exceptionall

Gardens for Health: A Walk Through History

May 3rd, 2015 53m 40s

Alain Touwaide explores some iconic sites in the Mediterranean world—Pompeii, Constantinople, Baghdad, Cordoba, Granada, and Padua, among others—and examines archaeological fields and early manuscripts that illustrate the relationship between h