Roundtable

The year 1776 wasn’t just pivotal for America — it was pivotal worldwide.

While the Declaration of Independence reshaped the American colonies, the rest of the world was hardly standing still. France edged closer to revolution. The Ottoman Empire confronted mounting strain. Qing China and Tokugawa Japan navigated internal pressures and shifting global dynamics. Britain’s industrial transformation accelerated. Across continents, Enlightenment ideas, imperial ambition, trade, and political change were already redefining power.

In this five-part online history series, we examine 1776 as a single year in global time — asking what was happening around the world at that precise moment, and how those simultaneous developments shaped the modern age.

Register at roundtable.org or follow the link in our bio.

Online classes
American history
Continued learning

Just announced! Literary expert Stephanie Rabinowitz returns this January for two dynamic online classes exploring American and Global literature:

Best of World Literature — Winter 2026 | Explore the work of authors from around the globe and discover the world in which they write: Stefan Zweig, Patrick deWitt, Zadie Smith, Halldór Laxness, and George Eliot. Register now: https://tr.ee/C0DA2B

Great American Fiction — Winter 2026 | Read and discuss some of the best American novels ever written: works from James Weldon Johnson, Willa Cather, James McBride, Ann Patchett, and E.L. Doctorow. https://tr.ee/LhyGfy

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Photo: Zadie Smith. Portrait by Inez and Vinoodh.

Manet, Morisot, and the Making of Modern Art
Use code MANET100 to audit this class for FREE:

Join curator Emily Beeny to explore the friendship and artistic exchange between Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot: the "father" of modern painting and the pioneering female Impressionist.

Learn how their relationship as colleagues and friends, painter and model, collectors of each other’s work and, ultimately members of the same family, had a determining effect on the course of modern art.

Register for free with MANET100:
https://roundtable.org/live-courses/arts/manet-morisot-and-the-making-of-modern-art?utm_source=facebookgroup&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=manet