Please note: This program will be held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street at Central Park West.

From journalist Kati Marton's personal narrative of life under Soviet-ruled Hungary to Richard Holbrooke's position as the Obama administration's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, this husband and wife team possesses an erudite perspective on global conflict from the second half of the 20th century to the present. Using their varied experiences as a point of departure, Mr. Holbrooke and Ms. Marton will offer insight on an array of topics, including current international challenges facing the nation.

Richard Holbrooke served under President Clinton as the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, and the United States ambassador to the United Nations. He was a key figure in brokering a peace agreement in Bosnia in 1995 and under President Carter served as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Kati Marton is an award-winning journalist and the author of seven books, including The Great Escape, Hidden Power, and Wallenberg. Her most recent book is Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America.

In the heart of New York City's bustling metropolis, Central Park's 36-acre Ramble is a bird watcher's paradise, where more than 270 species have been spotted in a single year. With New York being located along one of North America's busiest migratory routes, the spring months are an ideal time to spot the city's avian visitors on their trip north.

Journey with wildlife artist and illustrator Alan Messer to some of the most magical places in Central Park's wooded Ramble, discovering along the way both resident and migrating birds. Walks are limited to 35 guests per tour.

During the April walks through Central Park's Ramble, we will search for resident, late winter, and early migrants, including common birds at feeders. Chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, finches, and sparrows may be seen at this time.

Alan Messer is a wildlife artist and illustrator of books, field guides, and periodicals. He is a former president of the Linnaean Society of New York. Mr. Messer's illustrations are included in the exhibition, Focus on Nature XI, on view at The New York Museum, Albany, New York from April 12 through October 31, 2010. His paintings may be viewed at alanmesser.net.

David Ruggles was the best known "conductor" of the Underground Railroad in New York City, with Frederick Douglass one of 600 fugitives whom Ruggles sheltered in his home. In a striking departure from other abolitionists, Ruggles refused to rule out violence in helping fugitives and free blacks, arguing that self-protection was only sensible.

Graham Hodges is George Dorland Langdon Jr. Professor of History and Africana & Latin American Studies at Colgate University. He is the author of David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City.
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and specializes in the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and 19th-century America.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute of African American History at Harvard University. He is the editor-in-chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American Studies, and The Root, an online news magazine dedicated to coverage of African American news, culture, and genealogy. In 2008, he co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the African American National Biography, an eight volume set containing more than 4,000 biographical entries on both well known and obscure African Americans. He is the author of In Search of Our Roots, a meditation on genetics, genealogy, and race, and a collection of expanded profiles featured on his PBS documentary series, "African American Lives." Professor Gates's most recent documentary is "Looking for Lincoln," broadcast on PBS in February 2009.

Please note: This program will be held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street at Central Park West.

The 1960s hipsters thought they were inventing it all from scratch, but in fact the first real bohemians dated back to the 1850s and Walt Whitman's crowd at Pfaff's on lower Broadway. The first Bohemian neighborhood was Greenwich Village in the 1910s and 20s. Everyone from Edna St. Vincent Millay to John Sloan made "the Village" (itself, a made-up name) their hangout. It became so hip and chic that the "bobos" from uptown began flooding the Village, boosting rents, and filling new luxury apartment buildings. By the 1920s the Bohemian era was over...until the 1930s-50s when a new disaffected generation took up the Village mantra of non-conformism. Join us for this lecture and slide show, a "virtual walk" through Greenwich Village when it was the first Bohemia.

Barry Lewis hosts a popular series of walking tours on PBS. He is an architectural historian and teaches at Cooper Union CU Forum and the New York School of Interior Design.