The Department of International History hosts numerous lectures, roundtables, debates and workshops by our academics, visiting academics and others. Members of the Department are also involved in a series of events around LSE. Below is a list of these events by chronological order. Our events are usually free and open to all with exceptions duly noted. We make video and audio recordings available whenever possible.
From time to time there are changes to event details so we strongly recommend that if you plan to attend this event you check back on this listing on the day of the event.
7 March 2023, Tuesday 10am to 11:30am, Public Lecture
Chair: Professor Antony Best
To mark the publication of a new edited book Modern Japan’s Place in World History and recent developments in Anglo-Japanese security relations, we are hosting a webinar that will shine a light on modern Japan’s engagement with the outside world during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The speakers include Professor Yuichi Hosoya (Keio), Ayako Kusunoki (International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto) and Barak Kushner (Cambridge) and the event will be chaired by Antony Best (LSE).
4 May 2023, Thursday 6pm to 7.30pm, Public Lecture
Chair: Dr Ronald C. Po
Join Dr Ronald Po and Dr John Wong as they view the globalization of Hong Kong through the prism of its airline industry. This event will be centred around Dr John Wong's recently published book, Hong Kong Takes Flight. Commercial aviation took shape in Hong Kong as the city developed into a powerful economy. Rather than accepting air travel as an inevitability in the era of global mobility, in Hong Kong Takes Flight, John Wong argues that Hong Kong's development into a regional and global airline hub was not preordained.
9 March 2023, Wednesday 6.30pm-8pm, Public Lecture
Chair: Professor Vladislav Zubok
This public event aims to open a new conversation between historians of the USSR, of Africa, and members of the public with an interest in the Cold War. The Soviet Union was a key actor in post-colonial Africa. From facilitating trade exchanges to training guerrilla fighters, Soviet politicians, academic specialists, and soldiers engaged with different parts of Africa throughout the Cold War.
1 December 2022, Thursday 6pm-7.30pm, Public Lecture
Speaker: Professor Constantin Goschler
Sociologist Norbert Elias regarded Britain and Germany as prime examples of contrasting cultures of compromise. However, political scientist Martin Greiffenhagen claims that the relationship between the cultures of compromise of the two countries has been reversed since 1945. It seems that it is no longer Britain that now possesses a pronounced culture of compromise, but rather the Federal Republic of Germany.
This lecture will discuss these claims on the basis of a comparison of both countries.
23 November 2022, Wednesday 6pm-7:30pm, Public Lecture
Speakers: Dr Francesca Lessa, Professor Francisco Panizza and Dr Pilar Elizalde.
Chair: Dr Tanya Harmer
Join us for the launch of Dr Francesca Lessa’s new book The Condor Trials. Through the voices of survivors and witnesses, human rights activists, judicial actors, journalists, and historians, Dr Lessa unravels the secrets of transnational repression masterminded by South American dictators between 1969 and 1981.
22 November 2022, Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Public Lecture
Speaker: Professor Marc Selverstone
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones
This talk examines the arguments over whether President John F. Kennedy was preparing the ground for a US withdrawal from Vietnam in the months before his death, and whether US escalation of the war in Vietnam would have occurred if he had escaped the assassin’s bullet in November 1963
20 October 2022, Thursday 12:30pm-2pm, co-hosted by the Department of International History
Speaker: Professor Nemata Blyden
Chair: Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey
Professor Blyden's new research is an introduction to the complex relationship between African Americans and the African continent. What is an “African American” and how does this identity relate to the African continent? Rising immigration levels, globalization, and the United States’ first African American president have all sparked new dialogue around the question. This book provides an introduction to the relationship between African Americans and Africa from the era of slavery to the present, mapping several overlapping diasporas.