2015 Events

15 December 2015, Tuesday, 18:30, German Historical Institute London

Gerda Henkel Visiting Professorship Lecture: Life Cycle and Industrial Work. West German and West European Patterns in Times of Globalization (1975-2005)

Speaker: Professor Lutz Raphael

The lecture presented some of Professor Raphael’s ongoing research on the social history of the working classes in West Germany, France and Britain in times of de-industrialisation since the late 1970s. De-industrialisation was by no means a uniform outcome of a global evolutionary trend towards a new economy based essentially on service industries, but it was rather different forms of mixed economies which emerged along different national trajectories combining the manufacturing and distribution of goods, services and knowledge. The lecture explored how and why these various changes affected the life cycles of industrial workers differently in West Germany and Britain between 1975 and 2000. It examined the specific effects of, for example, higher levels of unemployment, greater job insecurity or the loss of traditional working skills on gender, age or ethnic differences.

Professor Lutz Raphael is the GHIL Visiting Professor for 2015-16. He has been Professor of Contemporary History (Neuere und Neueste Geschichte) at the university of Trier since 1996. His latest book is called Fremd und rechtlos? Zugehörigkeitsrechte Fremder von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (2014), edited with Altay Coşkun.

*Videocast*

8 December 2015, Tuesday, 18:30-20:00, Old Theatre, Old Building

Each Age Gets the Great Powers It Needs: 20,000 Years of International Relations

Speaker: Professor Ian Morris
Chair: Professor Michael Cox

20,000 years ago, ‘international relations’ meant interactions between tiny foraging bands; now it means a global system. Philippe Roman Chair Ian Morris explained how the growth of the international system and the shifts of power within it are linked to geography and energy extraction. In tracing this story, Professor Morris asked: Why were the world’s greatest powers concentrated in western Eurasia until about AD 500? Why did they shift to East Asia until AD 1750? Why did they return to the shores of the North Atlantic? And where will they go next?

Professor Ian Morris is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2015-2016; Professor Michael Cox is Director of LSE IDEAS.

*Podcast*

26 November 2015, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE

LSE Annual Gulf History: End of Empire: Britain's Withdrawal from the Persian Gulf

Speaker: Professor Wm Roger Louis
Chair: Dr Roham Alvandi

Eminent historian Professor Louis examined Britain’s role in the creation of the United Arab Emirates and the origins of the contemporary Persian Gulf. In January 1968 the British government announced the withdrawal of all troops from the Persian Gulf. This lecture placed the decision within the context of British economic priorities, regional conflicts in Aden and Yemen, and the American war in Vietnam. Above all it explained the reasons why the British upon final departure from the Gulf in 1971 were able to preside over the successful creation of the United Arab Emirates.

This event was hosted by the Department of International History with the generous support of the LSE Kuwuait Programme.

Wm. Roger Louis is Kerr Professor at the University of Texas and Honorary Fellow of St. Antony’s College, Oxford. His books include The British Empire in the Middle East. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford History of the British Empire and a Past President of the American Historical Association. Dr Roham Alvandi is Associate Professor of International History at LSE.

*Podcast*

24 November 2015, Tuesday, 17:00-18:30, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, SG1, Alison Richard Building (Sidgwick Site), Cambridge

Conspiracy Theories about Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey

Speaker: Professor Marc David Baer

Ergün Poyraz has written a string of best-selling antisemitic books in Turkey. Why have secularists such as Poyraz written conspiracy theories in the past decade and why are they so popular? What is the relation between the books they have written and those published by Islamists and extreme rightists? Can secular nationalists’ conversion to antisemitism have something to do with their losing power to the Islamists? In order to answer these questions, this presentation analyzed the antisemitic notions central to these conspiracy claims, traced their first emergence to the late Ottoman Empire, and followed the thread of antisemitic opinion from Islamists and extreme rightists in the twentieth century to leftists and secularists in the twenty-first. In so doing, it offered a comprehensive and original history of antisemitism in Turkey.

This event was part of a series of public talks from the Leverhulme-funded project Conspiracy and Democracy.

Marc David Baer is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe (Oxford University Press, 2008), which received the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Book Award. He is also the author of The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Stanford University Press, 2010). The recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, Baer is currently researching the interconnected histories of Jews and Muslims in Germany. Recent outcomes of this research include “Turk and Jew in Berlin: The First Turkish Migration to Berlin and the Shoah” in Comparative Studies in Society & History (April 2013) and “Muslim Encounters with Nazism and the Holocaust: The Ahmadi of Berlin and Jewish Convert to Islam Hugo Marcus” in The American Historical Review (February 2015).

13 November 2015, Friday, Churchill College, University of Cambridge

The Challenge of Political Leadership Symposium

Participants: Among others, Dr Kristina Spohr, British Labour politician, Lord Peter Mandelson, and former Secretary of State for Education and Home Secretary, The Right Honourable Charles Clarke.

This one day symposium sought to look at the challenge of understanding, assessing and improving political leadership. It sought to bring together historians and political scientists with politicians and practitioners in a multidisciplinary and cross party approach. The event was a collaboration between the Churchill Archives Centre, The Møller Centre, Cambridge University Department of Politics and International Studies and the Faculty of History.

Dr Kristina Spohr is an Associate Professor at the Department of International History, LSE, and a specialist in the International History of Germany since 1945.

30 October - 1 November 2015, Friday - Sunday, Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park

Cumberland Lodge Weekend: Subjugation in History
Speakers: Professor Janet Hartley, Dr Tim Hochstrasser, Dr Roham Alvandi, Professor Matthew Jones, Professor Anita Prazmowska, Dr Padraic Scanlan

Each year the Department of International History organises a weekend event at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. The aim is to allow students and staff to explore a broad historical theme in a relaxed, relatively informal atmosphere. This year’s subject was ‘Freedom and Subjugation in History’.

Programme

This event was open to department's students only.

29 October 2015, 18:30-20:00, Thursday, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE

Department of International History Annual Lecture: Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist
Speaker: Professor Dominic Lieven
Chair: Professor Janet Hartley

This lecture and new book Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia is a study of the international crisis of 1900-1919 from a largely Russian angle. It is based on significant research in Russian archives. Professor Dominic Lieven provides a radically different interpretation of the crisis to the one that dominates anglophone historiography.

Dominic Lieven is Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the British Academy. Janet Hartley is Professor of International History and Head of the Department of International History at LSE.

*Podcast*

27 October 2015, Tuesday, 18:30-20:00, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

LSE IDEAS Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs Inaugural Lecture: ‘A Theory of Everything: Evolution, History and the Shape of Things to Come’

Speaker: Professor Ian Morris
Chair: Professor Michael Cox

In the last 50 years, knowledge of archaeology, anthropology, history, evolution, genetics and linguistics has exploded. A new synthesis of history is emerging, suggesting that people are all much the same and the societies we create all develop in much the same ways. What varies is the places in which societies develop. Biology and geography have driven a 150,000-year story of cooperation and competition. By projecting forward the patterns of the past and the forces that disrupt them, we can begin to see where the 21st century might take us.

Professor Ian Morris is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2015-2016. Professor Michael Cox is Director of LSE IDEAS.

*Podcast*

26 October 2015, Monday, 19:15, Catherine Lewis Lecture Room, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street, Oxford, OX1 2HG

Jewish accounts of the Ottomans: From Sultanic Saviours to Turkish Rescuers

Speaker: Professor Marc David Baer

Professor Marc David Baer's lecture was part of the David Patterson Lectures Series.

Poster

Marc David Baer is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe (OUP, 2008), which received the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Book Award. He is also the author of The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Stanford University Press, 2010). The recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, Professor Baer is currently researching the interconnected histories of Jews and Muslims in Germany.

7 October 2015, Wednesday, 10:30-19:00, The Chancellor's Hall, Senate House, 1st floor, London

The Role and Experiences of Expatriate Women in the Last Phase of Empire and After

Speakers: Dr Joanna Lewis among many esteemed others

The purpose of the Conference is to record the first-hand experiences and contributions of women in the various former colonial territories.

Event organised by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.

Joanna Lewis is Assistant Professor of Modern African History at the International History Department, LSE.

25 September 2015, Friday, NAB.2.08, LSE

9th LSE International History PhD Workshop

Full programme:

10:30-11:30: Programme Welcome and Introduction (Dr. Antony Best)

11:30-13:00: The PhD Programme: Research, Resources, and Requirements (Cees Heere, Paul Horsler, Isaac Scarborough)

13:00-14:00: Lunch

14:00-15:00: Student Panel on Archival and Primary Sources (Jin Lim, Baastian Bouwman, Anne Irfan)

15:00-16:00: Professorial Panel on International Research

16:00-17:00: Additional Resources @ LSE

14 September 2015, Monday, 18:30-20:00, TW1.G.01, LSE

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning
Speaker: Professor Timothy Snyder
Chair: Anne Applebaum

In this lecture Timothy Snyder talked about his new book, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, in which he argues we have missed basic lessons of the history of the Holocaust, and that some of our beliefs are frighteningly close to the panic that Hitler expressed in the 1920’s. As ideological and environmental challenges to the world order mount, our societies might be more vulnerable than we would like to think.

Timothy Snyder is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University. He was the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS 2013-2014. Anne Applebaum is a columnist for Washington Post and Slate. She was LSE IDEAS Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs for 2012-13.

*Podcast*

4 June 2015, Thursday, 18:00, German Historical Institute, London

Panel Discussion: Negotiating the Nazi Model: The Internationalization of Nazi Labour and Social Policy and the Role of the Reichsarbeitsministerium, 1933-1945

Chair: Elizabeth Harvey, University of Nottingham
Participants: Jane Caplan, University of Oxford; Andreas Gestrich, GHIL; Matthew Jones, LSE; Sandrine Kott, University of Geneva; Kiran Klaus Patel, Maastricht University/GHIL/LSE

Since the late 19th century, German officials and experts had heralded their models of labor and social policies internationally. During the Weimar Republic, the newly established Reichsarbeitsministerium turned into the guardian and international promoter of German social policies and expertise. 1933 was no turning point in this respect: German actors remained part of international expert discourses, and while the Nazis assessed new schemes in Fascist Italy and elsewhere, they were also eager to promote their own programs abroad. This did not come to an end with the advent of World War Two either: instead, the war provided new opportunities and rationales to experiment with policies elsewhere, and to project Nazi labor and social policy ideas on other societies. Which of their ideas and schemes did the Nazis promote internationally? In how far did such policies continue earlier practices from the Weimar Republic or even the Kaiserreich? What was the role of racism and violence in this context? How did non-Germans react, and what was their room for manoeuvre?

11, 12 and 13 May 2015, Monday (18:00-20:00), Tuesday (10:00-18:30) and Wednesday (9:30-13:15), LSE Campus

Public Conference: "Encountering the Past in Turkey"

Feauturing several prestigious speakers and moderators, including Professor Marc David Baer

This 3-day conference explored how, why, under what conditions, and among which groups did willingness to confront the Armenian Genocide and other violent episodes Turkish history came into being. What kinds of strategies are used by different groups to promote coming to terms with the past as well as avoiding it? What transformative power can we expect from this numerically limited but strongly articulated movement? What are the implications of encountering the past for contemporary dynamics in Turkey? By doing so, it is hoped that the conference contributed to promoting acts of reconciliation that have begun in Turkey.

Conference Programme

Paper Abstracts and Bios

Marc David Baer is Professor of International History at the Department of International History at LSE. His research interests are Early Modern and Modern Europe and Middle East, Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and Germany. Professor Baer’s research focuses on the connected histories of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in European and Middle Eastern history, from the early modern era to the modern. He published extensively on his research areas. His most recent academic article is "Muslim Encounters with Nazism and the Holocaust: The Ahmadi ofBerlin and Jewish Convert to Islam Hugo Marcus", published in The American Historical Review (2015).

5 May 2015, Tuesday, 18:30, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

Professor Arne Westad’s Farewell Public Lecture: "China, US and Asia in the Twenty-first Century"

Speaker: Professor Arne Westad
Chair: Professor Michael Cox

The rivalry between China and the United States for influence in Asia will determine the geo-political landscape in this century. At the moment, most of the advantages are on the US side, especially since China after the last economic crisis seems to have been busy driving away potential allies in the region. But will this state of affairs last? What can China do to mobilise its undeniable resources in the exercise of a more effective foreign policy? And how will domestic developments in the two countries influence their long-term Asia policies? In his final public lecture at LSE before taking up the ST Lee Chair in US-Asian Relations at Harvard University, Professor Westad will discuss these questions with the audience.

Arne Westad is Professor of International History at LSE and Director of LSE IDEAS; Professor Michael Cox is Director of LSE IDEAS.

*Podcast* 

30 April to 2 May 2015, Thursday to Saturday, LSE Campus

2015 LSE-GWU-UCSB Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War

Participants: PhD students and faculty members, including Dr Piers Ludlow, Dr Svetozar Rajak, Professor Arne Westad, Dr Luc-André Brunet, Dr Tanya Harmer and Dr Valeria Zanier

LSE IDEAS Cold War Studies Programme of the London School of Economics and Political Science (CWSP), the George Washington University Cold War Group (GWCW), and the Center for Cold War Studies (CCWS) of the University of California at Santa Barbara co-organised their 2015 International Graduate Conference on the Cold War. This was the 13th annual conference co-organised by the three institutions. 

24 April 2015, Friday, 16:15-18:15, Harvard Faculty Club, Reading Room, 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA, USA

Kathryn Wasserman Davis Lecture: The Collapse of the Soviet Union: A 25-Year Retrospective

Speaker: Professor Vladislav Zubok

In late December 1991 – some 74 years after the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, had taken power in Russia – the Soviet regime and the Soviet state itself formally ceased to exist. This momentous event occurred less than seven years after Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Soon after taking office in March 1985, Gorbachev had launched a series of drastic changes that he hoped would improve and strengthen the Communist system. But these changes, far from strengthening Communism, led inadvertently to the unraveling of the Soviet state.

Vladislav Zubok is Professor of International History at LSE, with expertise on the Cold War, the Soviet Union, Stalinism, and Russia’s intellectual history in the 20th century. His most recent books are A Failed Empire: the Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (2007) and Zhivago’s Children: the Last Russian Intelligentsia (2009).

14-16 April 2015, Tuesday-Thursday, 16:30, Lewis Library 120, Princeton University, New Jesey, USA

The Leon B. Poullada Memorial Lecture Series, 2014-2015: Ottomans and Jews in the Literary Imagination of the Other, from the Fifteenth through the Twentieth Century

Speaker: Professor Marc David Baer

Lecture One, 14 April 2015, From Sultanic Saviors to Turkish Rescuers: Jewish Accounts of the Ottomans

Lecture Two, 15 April 2015, Cautionary Tales: Ottoman Accounts of Jews

Lecture Three, 16 April 2015, Ottomans and Jews in the Literary Imagination of the Other: a Roundtable Discussion with Marc Baer, Mark Cohen (Princeton NES Professor Emeritus) and Molly Greene (Princeton Professor of History and Hellenic Studies)

Marc Baer is Professor of International History at LSE. His books include Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe (Oxford 2008), and The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Stanford 2010). The recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, Baer is currently researching the interconnected history of Jews and Muslims in Germany.

18 March 2015, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE

Deng Xiaoping vs Gorbachev

Speaker: Professor Alexander Pantsov
Chair: Professor Vladislav Zubok

Was Deng Xiaoping right to call Mikhail Gorbachev "very stupid"? Alexander V. Pantsov discussed why the USSR couldn’t follow the pattern of Chinese reforms in the decade leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. His recent publications are Mao: The Real Story, and Deng Xiaoping: A Revolutionary Life.

Professor Alexander V. Pantsov is the Edward and Mary Catherine Gerhold Chair in the Humanities at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. Professor Vladislav Zubok is Professor of International History, LSE.

*Podcast*

17 March 2015, Tuesday, 18:30-20:00, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

Crowd-Sourcing, Surveillance, and the Era of the Synopticon

Speaker: Professor Matthew Connelly
Chair: Professor Michael Cox

“Big data” poses a massive challenge to the democratic accountability. Over the last four years the U.S. has quadrupled the amount of information that it classifies annually. This growth has become unmanageable, causing massive leaks, an unprecedented number of prosecutions, and a dysfunctional declassification system that is breaking under the strain. Luckily, the information revolution has also provided citizens with the means to address these challenges, such as crowd-sourcing the otherwise impossible task of creating a virtual archive of declassified government documents. By mining this data, we can detect patterns in classification and declassification, and automated tools to identify records that really do have to be kept secret. No longer just a tool of surveillance, data-mining can also help preserve the principle of open government.

Professor Matthew Connelly is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2014-2015; Professor Michael Cox is Director of LSE Ideas.

*Podcast*

17 March 2015, Tuesday, 18.30, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Book Launch: The Uses of Space in Early Modern History

Speakers: Dr Paul Stock ; Dr Paul Keenan
Chair: Professor Janet Hartley

The Uses of Space in Early Modern History, edited by Paul Stock, explores how spatial concepts can be employed by or applied to the study of history, and how spaces and spatial ideas were used for practical and ideological purposes in specific periods. It contains pioneering essays from an array of renowned historians: Lauren Benton, Amanda Flather, Michael Heffernan, Matthew Johnson, Paul Keenan, Beat Kümin, Robert Mayhew, Jeppe Mulich, Claire Norton, and Andrew Rudd. At the launch, Paul Stock (editor) and Paul Keenan (contributor) discussed the purpose and contents of the volume, as well as the wider significance of ‘spatial history’. For more information about the book click here.

The launch was followed by a wine reception.

Dr Paul Stock is Assistant Professor of Early Modern International History at LSE and the author of The Shelley-Byron Circle and the Idea of Europe (2010); Dr Paul Keenan is Assistant Professor of International History at LSE. His publications include St. Petersburg and the Russian Court 1703-1761 (2013); Professor Janet Hartley is Head of the International History Department at LSE. She is the author and editor of many books, including, most recently, Siberia: A History of the People (2014)

5 March 2015, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE

LSE Works - International History Public Lecture: Beyond the Cold War: How Summits Shaped the New World Order

Speaker: Dr Kristina Spohr
Respondents: Sir Rodric Braithwaite, Sir Roderic Lyne, Professor Arne Westad
Chair: Professor Stuart Corbridge  

Personal summitry, more than structural factors, shaped the peaceful ending of and exit from the Cold War. This lecture showed how meetings between international leaders in the period 1985-91 fostered rapprochement and creative dialogue, and reflected on their continuing importance today.

Kristina Spohr is Deputy Head of the International History Department and Associate Professor at LSE; Rodric Braithwaite GCMG is a British diplomat and author; Roderic Lyne is Deputy  Chairman of Chatham House and Adviser, Russia and Eurasia  Programme; Arne Westad is Professor of International History  at LSE and Director of LSE IDEAS. Professor Stuart Corbridge is Deputy Director and Provost of LSE.

*Podcast and Video*

25 February 2015, Wednesday, 12:30-14:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

LSE Department of International History Literary Festival Discussion: Commemorating 1815: Politics and the Arts after Waterloo

Speakers: Dr Tim Hochstrasser, Dr Kirsten Schulze, Professor Alan Sked, Dr Paul Stock
Chair: Dr Paul Keenan

In the bicentenary anniversary of Waterloo, a panel of LSE historians reflected on the legacy of Napoleon's defeat. The panellists discussed the political and artistic aftermath of Waterloo as well as the consequences for European and global history.

This event was part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015 that took place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015. A series of events, free to attend, exploring the foundations of knowledge, society, identity and literature, as well as those of LSE itself, with speakers including Ahmad Zakii Anwar, Anne Fine, John Gray, Elif Shafak, Raja Shehadeh, Will Self and Ali Smith.

Tim Hochstrasser is Associate Professor in the Department of International History at LSE. Kirsten Schulze is Associate Professor in International History at LSE. She has been the head of the LSE Ideas Southeast Asia Program since 2012. Alan Sked is Professor of International History. He is presently writing the Penguin History of Post-War (Western) Europe, which will also cover post-war Britain. Paul Stock is Assistant Professor in the Department of International History. Dr Stock specialises in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century intellectual history. Paul Keenan is Assistant Professor in the Department of International History at LSE, and LSE-PKU Programme Director.

*Podcast*

19 February 2015, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, LSE

Professor Marc David Baer’s Inaugural Lecture: “Muslim Encounters with Nazism and the Holocaust: The Ahmadi of Berlin and German-Jewish Convert to Islam Hugo Marcus”

Professor Marc David Baer called into question simplistic renderings of the Nazi’s relationship to Muslims, complicated historiographical accounts of Islam in Europe by underscoring its diversity, and rendered more complex our understandings of Muslim-Jewish relations. Research on Muslims in the World War II era has overwhelmingly looked at Muslims in the Middle East or those who were temporarily located in Berlin, focusing on Arabs, and, for that matter, on a single Palestinian, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, whose notoriety has overshadowed the activities of all other Muslims in Germany, and indeed, elsewhere. Based on an examination of the publications and archival records of the first Muslim communities in Germany, and the personal documents and private correspondence of their leading members, Baer focused instead on an overlooked yet significant Muslim community, the Ahmadi, based in British India. They established a mission in Berlin in 1922 which attracted German avant-garde intellectuals, partly through its promotion of conversion as a kind of double-consciousness, preaching interreligious tolerance, and practicing inclusion of homosexuals. When German society was nazified beginning a decade later, the Ahmadi—unlike the other Muslims in Berlin—in one important instance thwarted the Nazi reign of violence. Despite accomodationist overtures to the regime, they saved the life of their formerly Jewish co-religionist, and homosexual, Hugo Marcus, thus calling into question the claim that Muslims share a deep-rooted anti-Semitism with the Nazis.

Marc Baer is Professor of International History at LSE. His books include Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe (Oxford 2008), and The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Stanford 2010). The recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, Baer is currently researching the interconnected history of Jews and Muslims in Germany.

11 February 2015, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00pm, TW2. 9.04, LSE

Book Launch: An Awkward Alliance: West Germany and Portugal at the End of the Portuguese Empire

Speakers: Dr Rui Lopes, Dr Kristina Spohr
Chair: Professor Arne Westad

Led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Willy Brandt, the West German governments of the late 1960s and early 1970s left a well-remembered mark on the history of social-democracy, European integration, and Cold War détente. By contrast, in the years leading up to the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, Portugal remained Europe’s oldest authoritarian regime and, despite international condemnation, continued to wage war against liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. The awkward relationship between Bonn and Lisbon during this period, rooted in the intersection between European geopolitics and resistance to African decolonisation, is at the core of Dr. Rui Lopes’ new book, West Germany and the Portuguese Dictatorship, 1968-1974: Between Cold War and Colonialism, which was launched at this event.

Dr Rui Lopes earned his PhD in the International History Department in 2012 and taught in the department for many years. He is a Researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa; Dr Kristina Spohr supervised Dr Lopes's doctoral thesis. She is Associate Professor at Department of International History; Professor Arne Westad is Director of LSE Ideas.

10 February 2015, Tuesday, 18:00-19:30, Room EAS E304, East Building, LSE

LSE History Society: "Colonial knowledge, ignorance, and the end of Empire."  

Speaker: Professor John Lonsdale (University of Cambridge)

Beginning with a general sketch of decolonisation in Africa, Professor Lonsdale focused on Kenya and late colonial rule as a case study. He posed some quite specific questions about what people thought they knew at the time and what if any effect their contemporary knowledge/ignorance/prejudice had on historical processes and outcomes. 

John Lonsdale is Emeritus Professor of African History, Cambridge University and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. A world authority on the history of African nationalism and colonial rule, he has also pioneered the study of African political thought and religious history. He is most famous for his work on the history of ethnicity and civil war among the Kikuyu, Kenya. He has just edited the memoirs of a senior official in Kenya whose career has a bearing on the study of Mau Mau and his talk will also be focusing on the problems sources pose.

9 February 2015, Monday, 18:30-20:00, NAB 1.15, LSE

Working in Africa: Development, Peace-building and Governance in Kenya and Somalia

Speaker: Lauren Oing (former LSE HY436 African History student)
Chair: Dr Joanna Lewis

At the time of this event, Lauren Oing worked for Pact in Nairobi, Kenya, where she served as the team leader for a peace building and conflict resolution program in Somalia. She previously worked for the International Republican Institute (IRI) where she served as the country representative in Somaliland, running parliamentary strengthening and elections programs. Before her move to the field, she worked in IRI's Washington office, managing programs in the Africa and Asia divisions. Her time at IRI included designing survey research in Angola and Somaliland, supporting political party strengthening programs in Zimbabwe and Timor-Leste, and serving as an international elections observer in Kenya, Bangladesh and Uganda. Previously, Lauren worked as a legal assistant, and interned in the US House of Representatives.

Lauren Oing holds an MSc in international history from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in history from Amherst College; Dr Joanna Lewis (picture above) is Assistant Professor at the Department of International History.

3 February 2015, Tuesday, 18:30-20:00, Room B.13, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, LSE

George Padmore and Decolonisation from Below

Speaker: Dr Leslie James
Discussants: Professor Richard Drayton and Professor Bill Schwarz
Chair: Professor Arne Westad

The British Empire is now seen as a ‘patchwork’ of connections negotiated in precise contexts over time, rather than an integrated imperial structure shaped by a unified vision. Concurrently, the rising tide of anti-colonial activity after the First and Second World Wars is often described as part of a changing ‘mood’, where anti-racism and human rights held greater currency and where diplomacy was redefined and relocated outside sovereign state structures as part of a crucial ‘moment’ where new futures were imagined. But if the British Empire was not a hegemonic structure but a loose system, what implications did this have for anti-colonial organisers? From his base in London, the Trinidad-born Marxist, George Padmore, directed a constantly evolving strategy to end British imperial rule across Africa and the Caribbean.

In this public talk, Leslie James will discuss her new book, George Padmore and Decolonization From Below: Pan-Africanism, the Cold War, and the End of Empire, which will be launched at the event.

Dr Leslie James completed her PhD in the International History Department in 2012 after teaching for several years in the department and held the Pinto postdoc in 2012-13. Richard Drayton is Rhodes Professor of Imperial History. Bill Schwarz is a Professor of Literature at Queen Mary University of London. Arne Westad is Professor of International History at LSE and Director of LSE Ideas.