Events

29 November 2016, Tuesday, 18:30, Wolfson Theatre, LSE

GHIL Visiting Professorship Lecture: National Expectations and Transnational Infrastructure: The Media, Global News Coverage and International Relations in the Age of High Imperialism

Speaker: Professor Dominik Geppert
Chair: Dr Piers Ludlow

At the turn of the 20th Century, the increase in economic, technological and cultural integration did not simply coexist with continuing political, military and ideological antagonisms. Rather, these forms of integration served to reinforce points of reference that were squarely based on national paradigms. This lecture explores how, in an increasingly complex world of interconnected media, a growing interdependence in the business of global news coverage intensified – rather than alleviated – a dynamic process of nationalisation.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

Dominik Geppert is professor of Modern History at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts. His main areas of research are European political and cultural history of the 19th and 20th Century, especially the history of international relations, intellectual history and the interrelationship between the media, the public and politics.

8 November 2016, Tuesday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

LSE IDEAS Event: A Briton at the Heart of Europe: Revisiting Roy Jenkins' Presidency of the European Commission

Speaker: Piers Ludlow
Chair: Professor Janet Hartley

Forty years ago, a British politician was appointed President of the European Commission. This lecture, featuring Dr Piers Ludlow’s newest book, Roy Jenkins and the European Commission Presidency, 1976-1980: At the Heart of Europe (Palgrave, 2016), explores what Jenkins’s tenure reveals about the nature of the job and the history of Britain in Europe. 

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. The event will be live-tweeted by @lseideas (join the debate on Twitter using #LSEJenkins) and it will be recorded, with a podcast available following the event.

RSVP to this event on Facebook

Dr Piers Ludlow is Associate Professor at the LSE. His research focuses on the history of the European integration process and of Britain’s troubled relationship with it. Professor Janet Hartley is Professor of International History and Head of the Department of International History at LSE.

*Podcast*

4 November 2016, Friday, 09:00-17:00, British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH

British Academy Conference: European Union and Disunion: What has held Europeans together and what is dividing them?

Speakers: Among others, Dr Paul Stock (Department of International History, LSE), Professor Linda Colley (Princeton University), Professor Sir Ian Kershaw (University of Sheffield), Dr Kylie Murray (University of Cambridge), Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve (University of Cambridge), Professor Dame Helen Wallace (The British Academy) and Professor Patrick Wright (King’s College London).
Chair: Professor Ash Amin CBE FBA, Foreign Secretary and Vice-President of the British Academy

The conference explored some of the drawn-out narratives and sentiments that at different times have aided or compromised the imagining and workings of Europe, and in particular engaged with and unpack some of the constitutive stories of identity and meaning that in the past and present have helped to bring together and divide Europeans. This initial conference was not intended to be a comprehensive history but a platform for perspectives in a selection of connected themes on the nature, histories and identities of Europeans, over which disagreements are not a novel occurrence. This conference brought a theme of work on Europe’s Futures, which the Academy had announced new research funding for through a scheme on ‘Tackling the UK’s International Challenges'.

Dr Paul Stock is Associate Professor of Early Modern International History 1500-1850 in the Department of International History, LSE. He is a specialist in the intellectual and cultural history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He is the author of The Shelley-Byron Circle and the Idea of Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and editor of The Uses of Space in Early Modern History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

*Video*

27 October 2016, Thursday, 17:00-19:00, Senate House, North Block, Paul Webley Wing, Room S320

SOAS Chinese History Seminar: The Evolving Legacy of Shi Lang in China and Taiwan: From the Late Seventeenth to Early Twenty-First Century

Speaker: Dr Ronald C. Po

For more than two centuries, some of China’s most prominent officials and literary figures, among numerous intellectuals, have given special attention to the legacy of Shi Lang, the commander-in-chief of the Qing navy who annexed Taiwan in 1683. By analysing most of their appraisals and examinations, this presentation speaks to the construction of historical narratives as a continuing, shifting, and mutually reinforcing process. It also explores the divergent assessments of the admiral in China and Taiwan, resulting from the ever-changing political climate within and between them. In a nutshell, the objective of the talk is to examine the ways in which the legacy of Shi Lang functioned as it percolated through Chinese history from the Qing to the present. I am interested not just in delineating how the story evolved as a legacy but in exploring the rich variety of ways that the Chinese and Taiwanese have adapted the contents of Shi Lang to suit the demands of different historical situations.

Dr Ronald C. Po is Assistant Professor at the Department of International History, LSE. He specialises in the history of late imperial China and on maritime and global studies.

19 October 2016, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, LSE IDEAS, Tower 2, 9.05

LSE IDEAS: An Imaginary War? Culture, Thought and Nuclear Conflict during the Cold War

Speakers: Professor Ann Sherif, Dr Matthew Grant, Professor Benjamin Ziemann
Chair: Dr Piers Ludlow

This event was part of the Rethinking the Cold War Lecture Series, a collaboration between the Cold War Studies Project at LSE IDEAS and the Cold War Cultures network at the University of Sheffield, two leading centres in the UK for the study of the Cold War.

Collective imaginations of nuclear warfare were a central battleground of the Cold War, fought through war-games and fictitious scenarios. This panel debate explored the 'imaginary Cold War', from how specific media and national cultures created it to the implications for our understanding of the Cold War and the atomic bomb.

Ann Sherif is Professor of Japanese at Oberlin College; Matthew Grant is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Essex; Benjamin Ziemann is Professor of Modern German History at the University of Sheffield; Piers Ludlow is Project Head of the Cold War Studies Project and an Associate Professor in the LSE Department of International History.

*Podcast*

18 October 2016, Tuesday, 19:00-20:30, Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE

International History Public Debate: The Vanquished: The German Experience of Defeat and Revolution in 1918. A Debate
.

Speakers: Professor  Christopher Clark, Professor Robert Gerwarth, Professor David Stevenson 
Chair: Dr Heather Jones

As Robert Gerwarth launched his new book, The Vanquished. Why the First World War Failed to End  on how defeat in the First World War plunged Germany, and much of Europe, into chaos and revolution in 1918, we brought together a panel of historian specialists on the conflict to debate the book's themes and findings with its author.

Christopher Clark is Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge. The author of numerous studies on German history, his recent book, The Sleepwalkers. How Europe went to war in 1914 (London, 2013), was a global bestseller. Robert Gerwarth is Professor of Modern History at University College Dublin and Director of the UCD Centre for War Studies. He is the author of The Bismarck Myth (Oxford, 2005) and Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich (2011). His latest book, The Vanquished. Why the First World War Failed to End, has just been published. David Stevenson is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a renowned specialist on the First World War on which he has authored numerous studies, including 'With Our Backs to the Wall': Victory and Defeat in 1918 (Penguin, 2011). Heather Jones is Associate Professor in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. A leading specialist in First World War Studies, she has written extensively on the conflict.

15 October 2016, Saturday, 14:00, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, WC1E 7HU

Presidential Lecture: "Chicago and the Rise of the Skyscraper"

Speaker: Professor David Stevenson

An introduction to the history of high-rise buildings, using central Chicago as an open air museum of modern architecture.

Learn more about the Central London Historical Association 2016-17 Programme.

Join the Facebook group of the Central London Historical Association - especially of interest to our International History students.

The Historical Association supports the teaching, learning and enjoyment of history at all levels and bring stogether people who share an interest in and love for the past. It was founded in 1906 by a small group of history teachers and academic historians to support the growing need for good history resources in schools. Today there are over 50 branches around the UK who run over 350 events annually. Professor David Stevenson is the President of the Central London branch.

David Stevenson is Stevenson Professor of International History. His main fields of interests lie in international relations in Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; origins, course, and impact of the First World War. His latest publications include With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 (Penguin/Harvard University Press, 2011) and Arms Races in International Politics from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries (2016, edited with Thomas Mahnken and Joseph Maiolo). Professor David Stevenson is currently working on ‘In a Dark Time: Strategy and Statecraft in 1917’. An international history of the year 1917, under preparation for Oxford University Press.

13 October 2016, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, CLM.3.02, Clement House, LSE

LSE Institute of Global Affairs and Department of International History Public Lecture: "In Search of Truth in the Long Shadows of Nationalism"

Speaker: Julie Lindahl
Chair: Dr David Motadel

During a 6-year intensive investigation Brazilian-born Julie Catterson Lindahl discovered her family’s role in National Socialism and the SS. Her journey of discovery took her to Germany, Poland and Latin America, the place of her birth. The focus of her work was to understand the process of radicalization, and the reverberations of war and violence on the generations that followed. In this lecture Lindahl focused on the truth about the past she uncovered, what led her to uncover it and what the relevance of this story is for the times we live in.

Julie Lindahl is an author and social entrepreneur living in Sweden. In 2015 she wrote a first autobiographical account of her six-year journey into her family’s past in relation to National Socialism and the SS entitled The Pendulum: In Search of Truth, which has since then been used as learning material by schools in the U.S. and been featured by National Public Radio Boston. She is a recipient of the Stevens Traveling Fellowship 2015-16 awarded to her by Wellesley College, USA, and Honorary Research Associate, University College London, 2013-15. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Wellesley College, was a Fulbright scholar in Germany and holds a Master of Philosophy in International Relations from Oxford University. Julie is the founder of Stories for Society, a non-profit which works with story-making to examine complex social issues. David Motadel is an Assistant Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He works on the history of modern Europe and Europe’s relations with the wider world.

15 June 2016, Wednesday, 18:30, Legatum Institute, 11 Charles Street, London, W1J 5DW

Legatum Institute's 'Roads to Freedom' Series: "Britain and Europe: Culture, Country or Continent?"

Speakers: Dr Paul Stock, Associate Professor of International History (LSE); Patricia Clavin, Professor of International History (University of Oxford); Sir Simon Mayall, Senior Advisor (Greenhill and Co), Legatum Fellow; and Brendan Simms, Professor of the History of International Relations (University of Cambridge).
Chair: Hywel Williams, Senior Adviser (Legatim Institute)

Ahead of the UK’s forthcoming EU Referendum, the panel analysed Britain's relationship with continental Europe in the context of a thousand years of history.

Dr Paul Stock is Associate Professor of Early Modern International History at the LSE. He specialises in eighteenth and nineteenth century intellectual and cultural history. His current research focuses on the history of the idea of Europe, and on the history of spatial thought, particularly in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain. Prior to joining the LSE, he was Lecturer in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Culture and Literature at Birkbeck, and Teaching Fellow in European Studies at UCL. He is the author of The Shelley-Byron Circle and the Idea of Europe and editor of The Uses of Space in Early Modern History.

*Videos*

9-10 June 2016, Thursday & Friday, Instituto Mora, Mexico

International Conference: Intellectual Cultures of Revolution in Latin America: A Transnational Perspective

Convenors: Dr Tanya Harmer (LSE) and Alberto Martín Alvarez (Instituto Mora)

Latin American left-wing armed organisations shared repertoires of action, strategies, symbols and ideologies. Socialism, revolution and armed struggle became identities of these groups, which became important political actors during the last decades of the 20th century. Despite strong political and ideological similarities between left-wing organisations, our understanding of the processes of construction and diffusion of this “intellectual culture of revolution” in Latin America is still limited. Some authors ascribe the diffusion of ideas regarding radical change in the Global South to the predominant role of local revolutionary intellectuals who studied in European or North American universities. However, the evidence coming from Latin America points to a much more complex phenomenon. The culture of revolution comprised an amalgamation of local revolutionary traditions and global intellectual influences. Meanwhile, the direct interaction between left-wing organisations and activists from different countries appears to have been of fundamental importance in the construction of a transnational imagined community of regional and global scope.

Dr Tanya Harmer is a International History Department specialist on the Cold War in Latin America with a particular interest in the regional, inter-American dynamics of the struggle and its links to broader developments in the Third World. Alberto Martín Alvarez holds a Ph.D. on Latin American Studies from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and is currently a researcher at the Instituto Mora in Mexico City. He is co-founder and coordinator of the Revolutionary New Left International Research Network on Political Violence. He has been a visiting researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence (Universität Bielefeld), the Center of Advanced Studies on Social Sciences (Juan March Foundation) and the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. He has also undertaken extensive research on the origins and development of the Salvadoran revolutionary left.

8 June 2016, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Sheik Zayed Theatre, LSE

Department of International History Public Lecture: The Case for Brexit: Why Britain Should Quit the EU

Speaker: Professor Alan Sked
Chair: Professor Janet Hartley

Analysis of the failings of the EU and the advantages of Brexit.

Alan Sked is Emeritus Professor of International History at LSE. He is an expert on European and British history and his books have been translated into several European languages as well as Chinese and Japanese. His whole academic career was spent in the International History Department, although between 1981 and 1991 he was Convenor of LSE's postgraduate European Studies Programme, which converted him to Euroscepticism. He has also had a political career, co-founding the Bruges Group and founding and leading the Anti-Federalist League which became the UK Independence Party. He no longer supports the party but does support the cause of Britain quitting the EU. Janet Hartley is Professor of International History and Head of the Department of International History at LSE.

*Podcast*

12 May 2016, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, LSE

Book Launch: Wladyslaw Gomulka: A Biography of a Polish Communist by Professor Anita Prazmowska

Speaker: Professor Anita Prazmowska
Chair: Professor Janet Hartley

The end of Communism has not decreased interest in the subject. On the contrary, the availability of new archival sources has made it possible to add depth to what is known and to generally extend the historic study of the subject. Gomulka, the party secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party during 1956-70 is the subject of a new book by Professor Prazmowska. Based on extensive archival research it seeks to explain the way Communism functioned in Poland during that time. This self-effacing man was critically important in defining Poland's road to Socialism. But what that meant can only be fully understood by tracing the evolution of Gomulka's political career and his thinking.

Anita J. Prazmowska who holds the post of Professor of International History at the London School of Economics is an author of several key books on modern Poland. She has recently focused on the Communist period after the Second World War. More recently she has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship to work on Poland's policy of supporting the Cuban intervention in Angola in the 1980s.Janet Hartley is Professor of International History and Head of the Department of International History at LSE.

15 March 2016, Tuesday, 18:30-20:00, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

Each Age Gets the Inequality It Needs: 20,000 Years of Hierarchy

Speaker: Professor Ian Morris
Chair: Professor Erik Berglof

Through most of history, humans lived in tiny foraging bands with very low political, economic and gender hierarchy. After the invention of farming about 10,000 years ago, societies got much bigger and most forms of hierarchy increased; but since the coming of fossil fuels 200 years ago, although societies have become even bigger, hierarchy has declined. Philippe Roman Chair Ian Morris asked why changes in how we capture energy from the environment had these effects, and where inequality will go in the coming decades.

Professor Ian Morris is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2015-16. Professor Erik Berglof is Director of the Institute of Global Affairs.

*Podcast*

9 March 2016, Wednesday, 14:00-16:00, 32L.B.13, 32 Lincoln's Inn Field, LSE

Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre Seminar Series: Middle Eastern and South Asian Migrants in the Colonial Philippines

Speaker: Professor William Gervase Clarence-Smith
Chair: Dr Kirsten Schulze

Middle Eastern and South Asian migrants contributed significantly to the history of the colonial Philippines, chiefly coming to profit from a frontier of economic opportunity. Armenians were the early modern trail-blazer, however, they had almost disappeared from the archipelago from around 1800. South Asians came with the liberalization of trade in the 19th century, benefiting from the umbrella of British power. Some ‘Syrians’ worked for the US colonial administration after 1898, but this stopped during the First World War. In this LSE SEAC Seminar Series presentation, Professor Clarence-Smith expanded these stories of the different Middle Eastern and South Asian migrant groups in the colonial Philippines.

William Gervase Clarence-Smith is Professor of the Economic History of Asia and Africa, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Dr Kirsten Schulze is Deputy Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and Associate Professor in International History at LSE.

1 March 2016, Tuesday, 18:30-20:00, Room 9.05, Tower 2, LSE

Rebooting the Cold War: A Global History of Western Triumphalism and Nostalgia

Speaker: Professor Penny Von Eschen
Chair: Dr Piers Ludlow

Taking a reboot not as repetition but as a darker do-over, and focusing on the intersection of politics and culture, this lecture considered the restructuring of Cold War binaries in the early 1990s as many Americans searched for ‘a new enemy’, and again after 9/11 with George W. Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’. It further explored elaborations of triumphalism in former Eastern Bloc nations vying for membership in the EU and NATO and the rapid deterioration of US-Russian relations in 2006-2007 and again in recent months.

Professor Penny von Eschen is the L. Sanford and Jo Mills Reis Professor of Humanities at Cornell University; Dr Piers Ludlow is Associate Professor of International History at LSE.

26-27 February 2016, Friday and Saturday, LSE

Department of International History and the Cold War Studies Project at LSE IDEAS: Global Histories of Latin America's Revolutionary Left

Convenors: Dr Tanya Harmer and Dr Alberto Martín Alvarez (Instituto Mora). Event linked to the established New Left Network led by Alberto Martín Álvarez and Eduardo Rey Tristán.

Our knowledge of Latin America’s revolutionary left after the Cuban Revolution in 1959 is growing. New archives, oral histories and published testimonies have driven history forward and encouraged new research. However, we still know relatively little about the global dimensions of the revolutionary left (or New Left) in Latin America. We know that revolutionary left-wing militants shared feelings of solidarity, collective belonging and common purpose across continents. Members of Latin America’s revolutionary left also travelled to Europe (East and West), Africa, Asia, and North America, where they found inspiration, and participated in revolutionary developments. We also know that Latin America’s revolutionary left received moral, intellectual, cultural and financial support from counterparts and sympathetic groups abroad. Yet where and how these relationships and networks originated, how they functioned and with what consequences is less clear.

This international conference was funded by a British Academy Newton Mobility Grant, the École des Hautes Études Hispaniques et Ibériques (Casa de Velázquez) and the LSE’s Research Committee RIIF Seed Fund.

24 February 2016, Wednesday, 12:30-14:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

LSE Department of International History Literary Festival Discussion: Utopias in History

Speakers: Dr Tim Hochstrasser, Dr Padraic Scanlan, Dr Kirsten Schulze
Chair: Professor David Stevenson

Utopias come in many shapes and sizes - theological, ideological, or pure fantastical and visionary projections that are intended to inspire or create enthusiasm for the creation of alternative ways of living. They can also be attempts to make those ideas real in practice, with a variety of outcomes, positive and negative. Three members of the International History Department looked at case studies of theoretical and practical utopias from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Dr Tim Hochstrasser discussed "Utopias and Dystopias in 18th century Political Economy: Mandeville, Voltaire and Smith".

Dr Padraic Scanlan discussed "Freedom and Slavery in West African Colonial Utopias".

Dr Kirsten Schulze discussed "Islamic State and the utopia of the Caliphate".

This event formed part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2016, taking place from Monday 22 - Saturday 27 February 2016, with the theme 'Utopias'.

Tim Hochstrasser is Associate Professor in the Department of International History at LSE. He studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and gained his degrees from Cambridge University. He has also worked in a teaching and research capacity at Downing College, Cambridge and Keble College, Oxford and held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Padraic Scanlan is Assistant Professor in the Department of International History at LSE. He is an historian of the British empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a particular focus on the histories of slavery and emancipation. Kirsten Schulze is Associate Professor in International History at LSE. Dr Schulze has conducted research on armed conflicts in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. David Stevenson is Stevenson Professor of International History at LSE.

*Podcast*

9 February 2016, Tuesday, 18:30-20:00, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

LSE IDEAS Public Lecture: Each Age Gets the Bloodshed it Needs: 20,000 Years of Violence

Speaker: Professor Ian Morris
Chair: Professor Danny Quah

20,000 years ago, the average person stood a 10-20% chance of dying violently. Today, the chance is under 1%. We have cut rates of violent death by 90% by creating large organisations that impose peace; but the main method for creating these organisations has been war. In effect, violence has slowly been putting itself out of business. The broad trends suggest that this process will probably continue.

Ian Morris is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2015-16. Professor Danny Quah is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre.

*Podcast*

3 February 2016, Wednesday, 17:30, River Room, King’s College London

Book Launch: Arms Races in International Politics: from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

Speakers: Professor David Stevenson, Professor Thomas Mahnken and Professor Joseph Maiolo

Arms Races in International Politics: from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century was by Oxford University Press on 14 January 2016. The book, edited by David Stevenson, Thomas Mahnken and Joseph Maiolo, provides the first comprehensive history of the arms racing phenomenon in modern international politics, drawing both on theoretical approaches and on the latest historical research. It is divided into four sections: before 1914; the inter-war years; the Cold War; and extra-European and post-Cold War arms races. Arms Races in International Politics addresses two key questions: what causes arms races and what is the connection between arms races and the outbreak of wars.

Read more about the book from the publisher’s website (OUP)

Read Chapter 1  

Thomas Mahnken is the Jerome Levy Chair of Economic Geography and National Security, US Naval War College; Joseph Maiolo is Professor of International History at King's College London; and David Stevenson is Stevenson Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science

1 February 2016, Monday, 18:30-20:00, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

Department of International History Public Lecture: Empire of Things: Why We Have too much Stuff, and What To Do about it

Speaker: Professor Frank Trentmann
Chair: Professor Janet Hartley

What we consume has become the defining feature of our lives: our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers, and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket. Frank Trentmann provided a long view on the global challenges of our relentless pursuit of more - from waste and debt to stress and inequality.

Frank Trentmann is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, and directed the £5 million Cultures of Consumption research programme; his book Free Trade Nation won the Whitfield Prize. He was educated at Hamburg University, the LSE and at Harvard, where he received his PhD. His new book is Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First. Janet Hartley is Professor of International History and Head of the Department of International History at LSE.

*Podcast*

14 January 2016, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

LSE IDEAS, Paulsen Project Lecture: Tsar Alexander I and the European order, ideas and practices, 1804-1825.

Speakers: Professor Marie-Pierre Rey and Professor Dominic Lieven
Chair: Professor Janet Hartley 

This Paulsen Project lecture by Professor Marie-Pierre Rey explored the reign of Tsar Alexander I. Professor Rey's lecture examined the Tsar's personality and how his diplomatic actions, including relations with Napoleon, shaped the idea of Europe. Based on her three last books (Alexander I, the Tsar who defeated Napoleon; L’effroyable tragédie, une nouvelle histoire de la campagne de Russie and 1814; Un Tsar à Paris) Professor Rey’s lecture was devoted to Alexander I’s reign. It focused, on one hand, on the personality of the Tsar (his childhood, his education…) and, on the other hand, on his action in the diplomatic and geopolitical field. In particular, the lecture stressed the key role of European affairs not only in terms of practices but also in terms of ideas, perceptions and representations.

Marie-Pierre Rey is Professor of Russian and Soviet History at the University of Paris Pantheon Sorbonne; Professor Dominic Lieven is a Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy; Janet Hartley is Professor of International History and Head of Department of International History at LSE.