Events and Lectures 2022-23

Summer Term 2023

Urban Resilience

6-7.30pm, 5 June 2023

Speaker: Professor Edward Glaeser (Harvard); Chair: Professor Max Schulze (LSE)

In person and online

COVID-19 and the associated rise of remote work has shocked many of the world's cities, but cities have been through far worse in the past, argues Professor Edward Glaeser, a world expert on the economics of cities. Disease, natural destruction and wars have all shaped urban trajectories. Recently, remote work has been particularly disruptive as the most skilled are the most likely to connect through cyberspace. But there are good reasons to be optimistic about our urban world in the medium term.

More information, include how to register in advance, is available here: Register for this event

Lent Term 2023

Inflation, Pandemic and War: Is this time really different?

4-5.30pm, Monday 13 February

Online

World economies are facing a troika of challenges in the form of war (in Ukraine), disease (COVID19) and return of inflation, all of which has led to dampened growth globally. How far are these challenges, individually and as a combination, new, and what lessons can we draw from the history?

Featuring Dr Tehreem Husain & Dr Natacha Postel-Vinay (LSE), and Professor D'Maris Cofman (UCL).

Epstein Lecture 2023

Thursday 30 March 2023, 6.30pm

Speaker: Mara P. Squicciarini (Bocconi University)
A Complex Relationship: religiosity and science in a historical perspective

More information, including how to book, can be found here.

LSE Chinese Economic and Social History Workshop I

12 and 13 March 2023 (GMT) - Online

Hosted by Dr Melanie Xue and Dr Nora Qiu

For the programme and how to register, go to this page: Chinese Economic and Social History Workshop

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Research and Teaching in Historical Demography Workshop

17 and 18 April 2023

Hosted by the Department of Economic History, LSE

View full details of speakers and programme on this page: Historical Demography Workshop

History of Wealth Taxation Workshop

Monday 26 June, LSE

Co-hosted by the Department of Economic History and LSE Law School

An interdisciplinary workshop bringing together researchers of wealth taxation and experts from policy backgrounds and law practice to shed light on these complex issues.

Full details are here: History of Wealth Taxation Workshop

Michaelmas Term 2022

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, 6.30pm

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, 6.30pm.

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.

Summer Term 2023

Lent Term 2023

Economic History Events 2021-22 Public lectures and workshops