Worth Dying For?
Speakers: Tim Marshall, Simon Kuper, Martin Brighr One of the finest geopolitical analysts of our day, bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography, Tim Marshall, examines the relationship between flags, national identity and nationalism. In conversation with journalists Martin Bright and Simon Kuper, Marshall analyses what these symbols represent and how they relate to the renewed sense of […]
Hot Fiction
Speakers: Deborah Levy, Elif Shafak, Gaby Wood Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk explores the strange and sometimes monstrous nature of womanhood through the opposing figures of mother and daughter. Dreamlike and utterly compulsive, this is a delirious fairy tale of feminine potency, a story both modern and timeless. In Three Daughters […]
Is this the Asian Century?
Speakers: Jonathan Fenby, Rana Mitter, Linda Yueh, Gideon Rachman In conversation with China expert, Jonathan Fenby, Oxford Professor of Modern China, Rana Mitter, and economist and broadcaster, Linda Yueh, the FT’s Gideon Rachman, author of Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century, outlines the challenge to America’s supremacy by a troubled but rising China […]
Perpetrators and their Victims
Speakers: Michael Pinto-Duschinsky,Anthony Rudolf, Paul Bogdanor In Jerzyk, Anthony Rudolf recounts the tragic story of his cousin, the only child suicide recorded in the archives of Yad Vashem. In Kasztner’s Crime, Paul Bogdanor argues that Kasztner, forced into collaboration with Eichmann, sacrificed the lives of many to save a very few. The event’s moderator, Michael […]
In Praise of Forgetting
Speakers: David Rieff, Simon Schama David Rieff poses hard questions about whether remembrance has – or indeed ever could – inoculate the present against repeating the crimes of the past. Collective remembrance can be toxic, he argues, and sometimes it may be more moral to forget. Ranging widely across some of the defining horrors of […]
It’s Written In Our Genes
Speakers: Adam Rutherford, Rohan Silva In A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, Adam Rutherford tells the story of you and how you came to be. In every one of our genomes we carry the history of our species – births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration and a lot of sex – so this […]
My Dear Ones
Speakers: Jonathan Wittenberg, Shoshana Boyd Gelfand Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg interweaves the story of his family during the 1930s and 40s with the tragic unfolding of events in WW2 Europe. In a beautifully written narrative he describes some of his unique family and their fates. In conversation with Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, Director of JHub.
Aleppo
Speakers: David Abulafia, Philip Mansel Philip Mansel chronicles the history of Syria’s first capital city, vividly describing Aleppo as a pinnacle of cultural and economic power. Few places are as ancient and diverse as Aleppo, a once vibrant world city, famous for its food and music, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and traded together […]
Margaret Thatcher And The Middle East
Speakers: Azriel Bermant, Stephen Pollard Azriel Bermant’s Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East presents a fresh analysis of Britain’s role in the Middle East, based on recently declassified papers. Bermant questions claims that the Prime Minister sought to counter the Foreign Office’s Middle East policy, and maintains that Thatcher was in close agreement with the […]
The Women of Paris
Speakers: Anne Sebba, Ariane Bois, Jonathan Fenby Anne Sebba’s compelling new book, Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s, investigates the lives of women in this most feminine of cities during years of fear, courage, deprivation, secrets and, finally, renewal and retribution. Her fascinating cast includes Americans, Nazis, […]
Three Books in Three Photographs
Speakers: Philippe Sands Philippe Sands discusses his book East West Street and the images that were significant in its writing.
What’s The Point of a Library in the Digital Age?
Speakers: Aviad Stollman, Roly Keating, Adam Taub What are the challenges and opportunities for libraries in the 21st century? Can they offer anything more than cafés with free Wi-Fi? Director of the British Library, Roly Keating, and Head of Collections at the National Library of Israel, Aviad Stollman, discuss vital issues including open access, provenance […]