We are all too accustomed to political leaders declaring “Our country is full.” The United Nations has tried since the Second World War to assure the inalienable rights of refugees in the face of civil unrest, escalating wars, and the scourge of climate change, but in the end, nations control their borders.

Athenaeum Proprietor Janet Polasky’s new book, Asylum between Nations Refugees in a Revolutionary World, just published by Yale University Press, explores alternatives to fortifying borders in the cities and smaller nations that have sheltered refugees throughout modern history. The neighboring port cities of Hamburg and Altona, the Swiss Cantons, and the newly independent nation of Belgium, like Cities of Sanctuary today, not only offered asylum between nations, but prospered. Their open doors beckon as an alternative to restrictive immigration policies.

Join us on Sunday, September 10 at 3:30 at the Athenaeum for a discussion with the author, Janet Polasky, Presidential Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire. Copies of the book will be available for sale by RiverRun Books. 

This talk is in the third-floor Shaw Research Library.

Please RSVP at 603-431-2538.

Are we really in a time of unprecedented global crisis and danger? How secure is the United States and how safe are Americans from global turmoil? Is American power and prosperity already in decline? 
 
Athenaeum member, Portsmouth native and foreign policy writer Gil Barndollar will offer his thoughts on the war in Ukraine, tensions with China, and international security.
 
The talk will place in the Shaw Research Library.
 
Seats are limited. Please RSVP at (603) 431-2538.

The Athenaeum lecture series, Portsmouth, NH: Evolution 1623-2023 Part 2, continues with with Ed Caylor’s talk, Trading on the Gundalow. For more than 200 years, gundalows sparked the economic growth of the Piscataqua region. One hundred years after their appearance here, they were also in use in southern New England, the Delaware Bay, and the Chesapeake. They were instrumental in three American victories in the Revolutionary War. They were the key to America's expansion across the Appalachian Mountains and into the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys. Even in 2023, the gundalow is still a force for the environment and for education in the Piscataqua region.
 
Lecture is held in the third-floor Shaw Research Library and via Zoom.
 
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84419239979?pwd=b0UrZmtPdGlxcENDVG5WdWFaRkNJUT09.
 
Each program begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Shaw Research Library of the Portsmouth Athenaeum at 9 Market Square in Portsmouth, NH (unless otherwise noted). Reservations for each program are required as seating is limited. Please call (603) 431-2538 to reserve. If unable to keep a reservation, please call again to release the seat for someone else.

Attendance at programs is free for Athenaeum Proprietors, Subscribers and Friends. Guests and members of the public are welcome to attend the entire series by becoming a Friend of the Athenaeum for as little as $25 per year, payable at the door. Admission to an individual program is $10.

Every presenter in this year's lecture series is a Proprietor of the Portsmouth Athenaeum, suggesting the breadth of knowledge and interest in its dissemination that characterizes Athenaeum members. Each lecturer looks forward to engaging our audience with their knowledge.