Rising from Ruin: How Failure Shapes Nations, Individuals, and History

Americans like to celebrate national and personal success, but every society and every individual must respond to failures and unexpected defeats. Nobody can really succeed unless they know how to survive painful failures. This program will examine some great national failures, from the collapse of ancient Athenian democracy after military defeats to the decimation of Napoleon’s army in early 19th-century Russia. But we’ll also discuss writers who lost their reputations in literary failures, investors who lost their money in “stock bubbles,” and workers who lost their jobs in the Great Depression. Historians and philosophers have long analyzed the ways in which people interpret great failures, and they have posed a question that will shape our discussion: How do historical perspectives help us understand and move beyond the setbacks, defeats, and failures that are forever reshaping human lives?