As promised in our newsletter at the end of last term, we have planned an exciting series of events for Michaelmas Term:
Professor Nick Crafts
Play it again Clem? Lessons from the 1940s for Post-Covid Britain
6 October 2022, 6.30pm.
After World War Two, Britain faced issues which are familiar today: strengthening the welfare state, dealing with an inflated public debt, improving productivity performance, underpinning support for the market economy, and credibly promising a better future. The Attlee government has been widely praised for its handling of this difficult situation, and it is often said that we should remember the lessons of the 1940s. But what are the lessons we should learn, how successful were the policies of the time, and should we really try to go back to the future?
Hybrid event – full information here.
Brad DeLong
Slouching Towards Utopia - book launch.
10 October 2022 6.00pm.
DeLong tells the story of the major economic and technological shifts of the 20th century in a bold and ambitious grand narrative. DeLong charts the unprecedented explosion of material wealth after 1870 which transformed living standards around the world but which, paradoxically, has left us with unprecedented inequality, global warming, and widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Online event – full information here.
Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay! A Popular History of Taxes
Film screening hosted by Natacha Postel-Vinay (LSE)
24 October 2022, 6.00pm
Without taxation there is no government. Taxation is essential, but who is to pay, and for what? For centuries people have fought over these questions, and these fights have been at the heart of the development and crises of democracy, from Magna Carta through the French Revolution to the Global Financial Crisis and the Pandemic. Bringing together internationally renowned academic experts and policymakers, this gripping documentary retraces this fascinating history across France, Britain and Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day.
In-person event – full information here.
Sovereignty without Power: Liberia in the age of empires, 1822-1980
Leigh Gardner – Inaugural Lecture
23 November 2022, 6.00pm.
Leigh Gardner's work focuses on the economic and financial history of Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with an emphasis on Africa's connections to the global economy.
Hybrid event – full information here.