Events
Upcoming events
Stenton Lecture Thursday 17 November 2016, 6.30 pm. Henley Business School G11
Professor Patrick K. O'Brien. LSE and Saint-Antony's College Oxford.
Title: Britain's Wars with France, 1793-1815 and their Contribution to the Consolidation of its Industrial Revolution.
Attendance to the Stenton lecture is free, but registration is necessary.
In 2015, Britain celebrated the 200th anniversary of its decisive victory over Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. When historians consider the costs incurred to wage 22 years of warfare they find little to celebrate and much to deplore about the burdens these wars placed upon society. My lecture will argue that this post hoc, liberal and negative appraisal of these final wars against the "old enemy" is entirely misplaced. Economic progress was if anything strengthened and consolidated by the engagement in warfare. Britain's famous and precocious transition to become the world's first industrial nation was promoted by the French Revolution.
The Stenton lecture will be preceded by a workshop on 'War and the economy in the long 18th century', 2.00.-4.00 pm with the following speakers Dr Helen Paul (University of Southampton), Dr Richard Blakemore (University of Reading), Professor Patrik Winton (University of Uppsala), Professor Sylvia Marzagalli (Institut Universitaire de France). To register and for details, contact j.m.felix@reading.ac.uk
Past events
Guest talks
- Joel Felix, University of Reading, Tim Le Goff, University of Toronto, 12 January 2015, The public debt in France, 1661-1815, Institute of Historical Research, European History, 1500-1800.
- Catherine Desbarats, McGill University, 22 June 2015, Imperial Games: the playing card money of Canada, 1685-1720, Institute of Historical Research, European History, 1500-1800.
- Anne Conchon, Université Paris I, 11 January 2016, Financing a road network: the corvée royale in 18th century France, Institute of Historical Research, European History, 1500-1800.
Workshops
- The Excesses of the State.
- The Excesses of the State programme.
- The War within: finance and morality in Europe, 1630-1815.
- The Economic Impact of War, 1648-1815.
- Professor Joel Felix, 4 June 2015, Ministère des Finances, Paris, Midis Histoire. Jacques Necker, ministre des finances de Louis XVI: popularité et pouvoir dans la France des Lumières.
- Professor Larry Neal, 3 December 2015, The Emergence of Modern Finance: A Tale of Three Revolutions.