Fifth class in our six-part Lyceum series A History of the World in Six Weeks. Tonight's class is Industry and Empire: The Global Great Divergence. Western Europe eclipsed the former great powers of the east in China, Japan and the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century. Tonight's class will examine why and how this "Great Divergence" happened and the implications for the 19th and 20th centuries.

Classes presented by Andrew Buchanan, lecturer in global and military history at the University of Vermont.

$5 per lecture, $25 for series. Students under 18, free.

Rain, Steam, Speed and the Great Western Railway, painting by JMW Turner