This lecture was delivered at the University of St Andrews on 31 January 2024.

This lecture was delivered at the University of St Andrews on 24 January 2024.

This lecture was delivered at the University of St Andrews on 17 January 2024.

In this wide-ranging interview, Richard Bourke (King’s College Cambridge) discusses not only Hegel’s anatomy of the modern world, but how Hegel’s reputation changed over the twentieth century. In doing so, we discuss the significance of not only Hegel’s thought to contemporary society, but also the study of the history of political thought in gener…

This talk was given at Toppings in St Andrews on December 7, 2023.

In this episode, Emilie Aebischer speaks with Prof Michael Sonenscher about his most recent book After Kant - The Romans, the Germans and the Moderns in the History of Political Thought (PUP, 2023).By By Emilie Aebischer

The barely known story of the 30-year rivalry between Francis Bacon and Edward Coke is a fascinating case study in late-Elizabethan-Jacobean court politics. But it can also be a means by which to explore the limits of historical truth, and the uses of fiction. Jesse Norman is a Visiting Research Fellow at St Andrews, a Fellow of All Souls and a Mem…

This lecture was given at the University of St Andrews on 15 November 2023.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, many prominent liberals looked towards the future with eyes of disillusion and fear. In response they jettisoned key progressive ideals of the Enlightenment, such as equality and perfectibility, and formulated a defence of liberty in opposition to communism and totalitarianism more generally. In his new boo…

Adam Sisman in conversation with Richard Whatmore. Recorded on 8 November 2023.

This lecture was delivered on 11 October 2023 at the University of St Andrews.

In this episode, Robin Mills speaks with Matthijs Lok (Amsterdam) about his recently published book Europe against Revolution - Conservatism, Enlightenment, and the Making of the Past (OUP, 2023). In this book, Matthijs explores what counter-revolutionary thinkers in the decades around 1800 thought about Europe. Many of his conclusions are surprisi…

In this episode, Robin Mills speaks with Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora Vargas about their new book Welfare for Markets - A Global History of Basic Income (UCP, 2023). In their book, Jäger and Vargas trace the history of basic income from its rise in American and British policy debates following periods of economic and political crisis to its modern…

In this episode, Robin Mills speaks with Fredrik Albritton Jonsson and Carl Wennerlind, authors of Scarcity - A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis (HUP, 2023). In this book, modern economics is shown to be founded on a particular view of scarcity, in which human beings are said to be possessed of indefinite desires. Societ…

In this episode, Lasse Andersen speaks with Dr Stephen Bogle about his recently published book Contract Before the Enlightenment: The Ideas of James Dalrymple, Viscount Stair, 1619-1695 (OUP, 2023). The discussion covers many of the topics of Stephen’s book, including the life of Viscount Stair, the state of contract law before Stair, the central i…

In this episode, Lasse Andersen speaks with Dr James Stafford about his book The Case of Ireland: Commerce, Empire and the European Order, 1776-1848 (CUP, 2022). The topics of discussion cover many aspects of James’ book, including the impact of the American and French Revolutions on Irish politics; the Enlightenment critique of Empire in Ireland; …

In this episode, Max Skjönsberg speaks with Greg Conti about his newly published scholarly edition of Albert Venn Dicey's writings on democracy and the referendum. The writings collected in the edition cover Dicey’s attempt to construct a credible theory of democracy on a new intellectual and institutional foundation. Listen to an interview with Gr…

This lecture was delivered on 5 April 2023 at the University of St Andrews.

This lecture was delivered at the University of St andrews on March 15, 2023.

In Women Philosophers in Nineteenth Century Britain (OUP, 2023), Alison Stone explores the contributions of twelve women to philosophy in the nineteenth century. Focusing on five areas - naturalism, philosophy of mind, evolution, morality and religion, and progress in history - she shows how these women philosophers were responding to each other as…

This lecture was delivered at the University of St Andrews on February 15, 2023.

This lecture was delivered at the University of St Andrews on February 1, 2023.

In Adam Smith’s America (Princeton, 2022), Glory Liu explores how an 18th century Scottish philosopher became an icon of American capitalism. She shows how Smith became known as the father of political economy in the nineteenth century, and how the Chicago School of Economics, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, transformed Smith into the pre…

A commonly held position in post-WWII American intellectual life was that John Locke's Second Treatise of Government underpinned not only the Declaration of Independence, but also the American Political Tradition more generally. This might be wrong. Claire Rydell Arcenas's often surprising new history of American engagement with Locke from the earl…

The Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman famously argued in Capitalism and Freedom (1962) that free markets were a necessary condition for political freedom, as well as being the only true motor of economic growth. In his provocative and ambitious new book Free Market – The History of an Idea (Basic Books, 2022), Professor Jacob Soll sugge…