Fall 2019 OLLI Catalog (Interactive)

PEER-LED CLASSES (Omnilore)
(HDD) How Democracies Die
Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us
never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard
professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than
twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe
and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy
no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but
with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions,
such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of longstanding
political norms. The good news is that there are several
exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that we
have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research
and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s
Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the
American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how
democracies die—and how ours can be saved.
Common Reading:
How Democracies Die,
by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
(paperback 2019)
(HIH) How The Internet Happened
The story of the Internet is often focused on hackers and software
engineers. Who wrote the code? Who did it first? And who did it
best? There is plenty of this in Brian McCullough’s book, but there
is also the broader view showing how a handful of powerful
companies came to dominate the technology. The internet didn’t
happen only because of wizardly coding and cheaper computers.
It also happened because of serendipity, failures, friendships and
feuds; and through it all a flood of cash eased the path to success.
We will look at the interlocking histories of start-ups and how
entrepreneurs and CEOs battled one another on the technological
and financial playing fields. Some of the most interesting moments
occur when we meet the already forgotten players of the early days
that gave rise to the dominating businesses of today. In many ways,
the history of the internet was ugly, but as the smoke clears, we
find that we are left with something truly new, ubiquitous and
even beautiful, like the sleek new iPhone.
Common Reading:
How the Internet Happened:
From Netscape to the iPhone
by Brian McCullough (October 2018)
Fall 2019 | www.csudh.edu/olli | (310) 243-3208 35