John Eicher, associate professor of history at Penn State Altoona, published an article on the 1918 influenza pandemic in the journal Contemporary European History. The article concludes that the average Europeans who endured the 1918 influenza pandemic had no idea it was a pandemic in real time.
ALTOONA, Pa. — Penn State Altoona Associate Professor of History John Eicher, in his role as a 2023-24 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, has created a new online lecture series focusing on the "ABCs" — "abstractions," "bureaucracies" and "control" — of modern Western history.
Eicher recently released the entire 10-part lecture series, titled, "Western Civilization (1500-Present): From Dawn, to Decadence, to Disillusionment," on YouTube.
In the series, Eicher argues that the growth of bureaucratic thinking in the “West” created a world where abstractions eclipse reality, which grants bureaucracies control of the modern world. The series examines the fate of 19th century Western "progress" and its implications for the postmodern, 21st-century world. The series follows a 500-year narrative arc but each 40 to 50-minute lecture can be viewed as a standalone presentation.
Although aimed at a general audience, lectures may be useful in the classroom as video textbooks of modern Western civilization or modern European history.
