How can we understand the war in Ukraine in the light of European history over the past century? Is Putin a '20th-century Hitler' as some have called him? What are his aims, and how do they compare with those of the Nazis during the Second World War? Why are the Ukrainians resisting the Russian invasion so fiercely? This lecture attempts to explain the nature of the current conflict by setting it in its historical and geopolitical context. A lecture by Professor Sir Richard Evans The transcript ...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Britain has one of the richest of all pagan heritages in Europe, defined as the textual and material evidence for its pre-Christian religions. The island is possessed of monuments, burial sites and a range of other remains not only from several distinct ages of prehistory, but also from three different major historic cultures. This lecture will look at what we know of prehistoric worship, focusing on Stonehenge and the bog body known as Lindow Man, to examine the difficulties of interpreting evi...
Sep 27, 2022•58 min
The emergence of the global Internet challenged the notion that states have sovereignty over what their citizens see and hear, and what they can say. Governments around the world shut or slow down internet access for political and security reasons, and prohibit the online publication of undesirable content. How are they able to do this, when so much of the world’s internet infrastructure is outside their control? And what are the prospects for future regulation of our online interactions? A lect...
Sep 23, 2022•1 hr 2 min
No one has been left untouched by COVID-19. Many individuals have been left with the physical and mental health consequences of the virus- now known as long Covid. This lecture looks at the medical issues, and the new therapies and treatments that are emerging. Those not physically infected by the virus continue to experience the broader impact of the virus; the increasing social inequalities and loss of employment, education and loved ones. A lecture by Professor Monica Lakhanpaul The transcrip...
Sep 21, 2022•1 hr 10 min
Most summers Tudor and Stuart monarchs took their court on an extended progress round the home counties staying at their own palaces and the houses of their courtiers. The cost and impact of hundreds of people, their horses and servants, was considerable; for the aristocratic hosts a royal visit was a momentous event. This lecture draws on new research to reveal who they benefited, their impact on the economy, the landscape and on architectural ambition. A lecture by Professor Simon Thurley CBE ...
Sep 16, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Everyone agrees that good judges are essential for the maintenance of the Rule of Law in a democratic society. But what makes a judge a good judge and how should we recruit them? The talk will consider how the role of the judiciary has been regarded over the years, how the skills and qualities needed have changed and how they have stayed the same as well as looking at different approaches to judicial appointment in different jurisdictions. A lecture by The Rt. Hon Lady Rose of Colmworth The tran...
Jun 29, 2022•52 min
Inigo Jones is the architect best-known for the Banqueting House on Whitehall, one of the icons of British state architecture. He is less well known for the domestic buildings, the ‘architecture of necessity’ commissioned by the early Stuart monarchs and their consorts, most of which have been demolished and forgotten. New research into Jones's work for the early Stuarts throws new light on architecture and court life especially in the 1630s in the lead up to Civil War. A lecture by Professor Si...
Jun 20, 2022•1 hr 1 min
The “singularity theorems” of the 1960s demonstrated that large enough celestial bodies, or collections of such bodies, would, collapse gravitationally, to “singularities”, where the equations and assumptions of Einstein’s general relativity cannot be mathematically continued. Such singularities are expected to lie deep within what we now call black holes. Similar arguments (largely by Stephen Hawking) apply also to the “Big-Bang” picture of the origin of the universe, but whose singularity has ...
Jun 16, 2022•1 hr 4 min
How should companies raise money? This lecture will look at both debt (bank loans and bonds) and equity (shares given to other founders, or sold on the stock market). It will analyse how a company should choose between debt and equity and explain how many factors that companies – and even highly-paid investment banks – focus on are actually irrelevant. It will explain how financial decisions, stock valuations, and risk change in the presence of debt. A lecture by Professor Alex Edmans The transc...
Jun 15, 2022•1 hr 3 min
By the later eighteenth century, Protestant countries’ empires were spreading across the globe but Protestant churches were wriggling free of state control. What were the lessons from the early history of the missionary movement, and how did they underpin the wave of imperialism that followed? The missions’ later success depended on their increasing freedom from political control and their readiness to act independently; but also on the deep imperial assumptions they had imbibed. A lecture by Pr...
Jun 15, 2022•1 hr 2 min
How can life form in the Universe, and what are the necessary ingredients for habitability so that planets can sustain life? Can we expect life elsewhere in the solar system, or on exo-planets? This lecture offers a broader perspective from astrobiology, astrochemistry, and astrophysics on the habitability or otherwise of other planets beyond Planet Earth. A lecture by Professor Katherine Blundell The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College webs...
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr 4 min
The conflict in Ukraine – and earlier events like Brexit - led prominent asset managers such as BlackRock to declare the “end of globalisation.” Where is globalisation headed? This talk will take a supply chain perspective on globalisation: why we buy from or sell to far off places and build global supply chains to get the goods from raw material suppliers to manufacturers, and eventually to consumers. And it will look at why globalisation is under threat – besides geopolitics, the supply chain ...
Jun 13, 2022•1 hr
Spinning things are strange. Why does a spinning top stand up? Why doesn't a rolling wheel fall over? How does a falling cat always manage to land on its feet? How can the Hubble Space Telescope turn around in space? How do ice-skaters spin so fast? Taking a look at gyroscopes, this lecture explores the common threads that link all spinning things. The law of Conservation of Angular Momentum is far more subtle than we may think and there are many counter-intuitive observations. A lecture by Prof...
Jun 13, 2022•59 min
The Internet and enhanced tools of digitalisation and communication have given opportunities to investigative journalists undreamed of even 10 years ago, and globalisation has connected the newshounds and whistleblowers of every continent. From Latin-America to Nigeria, from India to Poland, courageous men and women are exposing problems and holding the powerful to account and in some cases, collaborating across continents. Governments, corporations and defence establishments need to take it int...
Jun 07, 2022•52 min
Modern humans evolved in Africa and successfully colonised the globe only in the last 100,000 years or so, a feat made possible by cultural and genetic adaptation. Human habitats differ dramatically in climate, available foods or pathogens, and genetic adaptation was mediated both by mutation and by interbreeding with archaic humans such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. Besides representing a mark of our past, these adaptations contribute to diversity in living people in traits such as skin colou...
Jun 07, 2022•47 min
What does Natural Prosperity look like? In this lecture we envision a new, more equitable future where wellbeing and nature-based solutions take the place of growth at any cost. Growth has almost vanished in industrialised countries since the global financial crisis of 2008. By breaking free from growth, a new economy based on natural prosperity can contribute to our survival and success in future. A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are availa...
Jun 06, 2022•58 min
Early computers were either designed to do one thing or, if they were programmable, they would be loaded-up with the program, it would run, and then a new program would be run. But a modern computer gives the appearance of doing multiple things at once. This lecture shows that in reality it is a supreme juggling act and, like a plate-spinning act, should be accompanied by The Sabre Dance amazement and applause. A lecture by Richard Harvey The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture a...
Jun 01, 2022•1 hr 4 min
In the Commonwealth Caribbean, final appeals were traditionally heard by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or ‘Her Majesty in Council’. Some islands have now replaced the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice as their highest court. The choice of highest court remains a controversial political issue in the Caribbean. While the Privy Council has deep colonial and imperial roots, it has sometimes been an important safeguard for fundamental rights: what are the pros and cons?...
May 31, 2022•1 hr
The beautiful sine wave turns out to have a huge number of practical applications, from the motion of springs, to waves in the sea, to sound waves, light waves and more. It is curious that the function which defines the sine wave, sin(x), comes from comparing the lengths of sides in right-angled triangles – just about the least curvy things you could imagine. How does that concept result in the lovely curve of the sine wave? A lecture by Sarah Hart The transcript and downloadable versions of the...
May 31, 2022•1 hr
In the aftermath of the Soviet war victory, ideological control was tightened again, contrary to expectations. The six leading Soviet composers (including Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Myaskovsky and Khachaturian) were censured and humiliated by a Party Resolution against 'formalism'. This is a story of necessary retreat and compromise, but also of resilience and survival, when even under great pressure, composers produced works of deep lyricism and humanity. It will feature performances from: Laura ...
May 27, 2022•1 hr 16 min
How do you value stocks? Finance textbooks argue that you should look at their dividends. But many stocks don’t pay dividends, and even if they do, it’s hard to forecast what they’ll be in the future. And newspapers talk about a stock’s 'price-to-earnings' ratio which seems nothing to do with dividends. This lecture will explore the essentials of stock valuation, explain what causes stocks to rise and fall so wildly, and demystify the jargon used by finance practitioners. A lecture by Alex Edman...
May 25, 2022•51 min
This lecture looks at the very optimistic picture of trends in health around the world. Childhood deaths and the diseases of young adults are falling rapidly. Scientific advances are transforming the major chronic diseases and cancer. In low, middle and high income countries, health is improving through to old age. There are some major exceptions, such as dementia, but the extraordinary advances in health over the last decades is set to continue. A lecture by Chris Whitty The transcript and down...
May 23, 2022•57 min
Abstinence from sex is a requirement for many people seeking a spiritual life. In the U.S., abstinence-only education has been officially endorsed since 1981, despite the fact that America has the highest level of teen-pregnancies in the industrialized world. In more recent years, self-proclaimed 'Asexuals' have insisted that they have a distinct sexual identity. They have become targets of hate speech. What do these contrasting ways of thinking about abstinence tell us about modern sexual anxie...
May 20, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Pope Alexander VII did more for Rome than any other Pope when in 1655 he employed the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini to reshape the city. Already celebrated as the greatest artist of his age, with Alexander, Bernini became part of one of the greatest artistic double acts in history, festooning Rome's historic centre with the sculptures, fountains and buildings that make it one of the world's wonders to this day. At a time when the papacy's political power and influence was in decline, it helped m...
May 19, 2022•56 min
Although life is probably widespread in the universe, our pale blue dot, Earth, is the only known place harbouring intelligent life. Even if we manage to stave off extinction by climate change, avoid a nuclear apocalypse and the dangers of runaway AI, biological life on our planet will eventually come to an end in about 5 billion years’ time. What are the astrophysical dangers to life on Earth, and the prospects for life’s survival into the distant future? A lecture by Roberto Trotta The transcr...
May 19, 2022•1 hr 1 min
With conspiracy theories and disinformation on the rise in both media and politics, is our democracy at risk? We may lose trust in society, in the institutions that inform us, and, ultimately, in the democratic process. Our sense of responsibility for the everyday information we share may diminish. Deceitful politicians may escape scrutiny by claiming that truths are false, falsehoods are true, and in any case nothing can be proved. How should we respond to these challenges? A lecture by Andrew ...
May 11, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Recent studies from around the world show insects are disappearing fast. If this continues, this will have profound consequences for mankind and for our planet, for insects provide a myriad of vital ‘ecosystem services’, such as pollination, pest control, decomposition and recycling. This lecture looks at the causes of this crisis, at possible solutions including more sustainable farming systems, and at what we can do individually to create insect-friendly habitats. A lecture by David Goulson Th...
May 11, 2022•59 min
Early Protestant empires in Asia – in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Taiwan and elsewhere – brought missionaries with them. Like their Catholic predecessors, they learned that winning converts was formidably difficult, especially in empires that were principally commercial. As this lecture will show, some concluded that the effort was futile; others grew increasingly coercive; but others still began to explore ways of learning from and with indigenous peoples. The results, for good or ill, set pat...
May 11, 2022•58 min
England’s earliest chair of mathematics was that of Gresham College, founded in 1597, but who came next? The earliest University-based mathematics professorship was Oxford’s Savilian Chair of Geometry, founded in 1619. This illustrated lecture outlines the 400-year history of this Chair, from its beginnings to the present day, and features such figures as Henry Briggs, John Wallis, Edmond Halley, James Joseph Sylvester and G. H. Hardy. A lecture by Robin Wilson The transcript and downloadable ve...
May 06, 2022•50 min
It seems that fakes are everywhere – very few domains of social life are exempt from concerns about fakes and a general ‘crisis of authenticity’. While fakes are often considered worthless, this talk argues that fakes can signal blind spots in our understanding of health-related matters. This lecture draws on examples from the art world and discussion of fakes in films and what these can tell us about fakes in domains of health and medicine. A lecture by Dr Patricia Kingori The transcript and do...
May 06, 2022•55 min
