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GreshamCollege Science and religion came together to help shape the attitudes of the British and Europeans towards the rest of the world, whose inhabitants were increasingly regarded as socially inferior and spiritually ignorant. This lecture looks at how these ideas framed the growth of overseas Empire in the latter part of the nineteenth century, how Britain and those European states that possessed colonies governed them and what were the consequences for politics and ideology at home, above all in the growth of the So
May 11, 2011

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GreshamCollege If there was any single belief that characterized the Victorian era it was Christian belief. Religion pervaded social and political life to an extent almost unimaginable today. Yet this was also an age of major scientific progress and discovery. Ranging from Darwin's Origin of Species to Strauss's Life of Jesus, new techniques and approaches undermined faith in the literal truth of the Bible. This lecture looks at the relationship between science and religion and attempts to explain the growth towards th
Mar 18, 2011

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GreshamCollege The nineteenth century, above all in Europe, was the age of the 'demographic transition', from high birth and death-rates to low ones; people's health improved, they lived longer, the devastating visitations of epidemics like smallpox, typhoid and cholera gradually disappeared. This lecture explores the reasons for this change, and looks at its effects on culture and society, attitudes towards death and suffering, disease, debilitation and at the end of the century, degeneracy and the Darwinian struggle for
Mar 16, 2011

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GreshamCollege The first lecture set the scene by analysing the devastating effects of the First World War on Europe, and goes on to focus on Italy, where a recently introduced democratic political system disintegrated, giving way to the Fascist dictatorship of Mussolini in the 1920's. All our lectures are available for free download from the Gresham College website, in video, audio or text formats: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Gresham College professors and guest speakers have been giving free public lectures in central Lond
Mar 16, 2011

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GreshamCollege The third lecture in the series asked why so many European states fell victim to dictators in the interwar years. It looked at a variety of dictators for an answer, including Metaxas in Greece, Franco in Spain, Dollfuss and Schuschnigg in Austria, and the dictators of a number of countries in Eastern Europe.
Mar 16, 2011

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GreshamCollege The most durable dictators in twentieth-century Europe were Communists dictators. The final lecture in the series shows how Stalin established the pattern of Communist dictatorship, and asks how far the 'cult of personality' survived the process of 'destalinization' that followed his death in 1953.
Mar 16, 2011

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GreshamCollege The second lecture in the series turned to Germany, where the economic depression that began in 1929 destroyed the Weimar Republic and ushered Hitler and his Nazi Party to power. Hitler's dictatorship combined intensive political repression with comprehensive propaganda, racial engineering and preparation for European conquest.
Mar 16, 2011