There are 1.4 billion Muslims in the world—over a fifth of the world’s total population. 70 percent of these Muslims live outside the Arab world, including Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. Despite its vastness, it’s a religion that remains a mystery to many in the West. Encompassed within Islam are Sunnis, Shiites, and Sufis, and within those broad divisions are still more layers that span from progressive to traditional and Islamist. This lecture draws upon Professor Asani’s highly popular core course at Harvard, “Understanding Islam,” and provides a framework to appreciate the diversity of Muslim thought and practice in different cultural and historical contexts.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and four days later Germany and Italy also declared war on the U.S. Yet America's involvement in World War II had been predetermined as early as May of 1940 when Adolph Hitler's U-boats had nearly squeezed England into submission. Winston Churchill secretly requested 50 destroyers from Roosevelt and offered to give the U.S control of some British navy bases in the Caribbean. Despite intense isolationist opposition from Congress, Roosevelt circumvented the treaty process and cemented the deal through an executive agreement, which also included cooperation with British intelligence operations and weapons development. Some evidence suggests the Axis alliance of Germany, Japan, and Italy was formed as a reaction to this agreement and other cooperative actions involving FDR and Churchill. Drawing on newly-released classified documents, interview transcripts, and recently-published scholarship, this class describes the White House decision making behind these events and the relevance of these decisions for the exercise of presidential power today.

The Statue of Liberty was once the most profound symbol of welcome to immigrants entering the United States. But as the debate over immigration reform rages in Congress and the media, has the welcome mat worn thin? What does it mean to hold out a beacon to the world's "tired, poor, huddled masses?" Do we welcome immigrants in because of, or despite, the economic impact they have on the United States? Many in the American labor movement contend illegal immigrants flood the job market, take jobs away from native-born workers, and send wages tumbling. But do they really? Drawing on over a decade of research into the economic impact of immigration, Rachel Friedberg examines how new immigrants fare in the U.S. labor market and how they affect the economic well-being of native-born Americans.

On the heels of his extremely popular One Day University lecture on the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe, Professor of Astronomy David Helfand now turns his attention back toward the planet earth. He categorizes the influences on earth’s climate as those which are predictable, measured, and understood (e.g., changes in earth’s orbit), those which are predictable, measured, and only partially understood (e.g., the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere), and those which are unpredictable, poorly measured, and not well understood at all (e.g., ocean circulation). Helfand places the problem in the context of the highly accurate measurements we have of the long-term history of earth’s climate. He will assess the likely impact of climate change on ourselves and our grandchildren and address whether anything can reasonably be done to regulate the earth’s climate.