Professor Dominic Lieven will give the 2024 Lees Knowles Lectures on the theme of ‘War, empire and geopolitics: history’s lessons for the present?’
An Honorary Fellow of Trinity and Fellow of the British Academy, Professor Lieven specialises in the Russian Empire, Napoleonic Wars and First World War.
His is author of award-winning books including Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia (Penguin 2015), which won the Pushkin House Prize 2015 and Russia Against Napoleon. The Battle For Europe 1808 to 1814 (Penguin 2009), which won the Wolfson History Prize 2009.
We caught up with Professor Lieven for a quick insight into his five-part lecture series.
In a nutshell what will your Lees Knowles Lectures cover?
The lecture series sums up all I have ever thought or written about war, geopolitics, empire and Russian history. Inevitably Russia looms large across all five lectures, even in unexpected places.
Why should we understand Russia (better, if we don’t already know much)?
Russia will not go away so we have to live with it. That requires understanding the mentality and opinions of Russians in general and their leaders especially. We also need to understand what has shaped these opinions.
How worried should we be about the current instability and conflict in the world?
We should be very worried. The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are already serious and could escalate. If China is serious about regaining Taiwan it will need to use coercion and probably to act soon. The possible resulting conflict with the USA could cause a third world war. Beyond this immediate danger, climate change even if partly mitigated by wise policies is bound to create many serious conflicts both within and between states.
What have you learnt about the nature of empire through your research?
True empires in the full historical sense no longer exist. Empires were one of the most prevalent types of polity in history. Some of them sustained great civilizations and encouraged not just peace and trade across huge regions but also the spread and mingling of ideas, cultures etc. Of course empires were not democracies but extremely few pre-modern polities were democracies in the modern sense.
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The Lees Knowles Lectures take place at 5pm in the Winstanley Lecture Theatre on the following dates:
Monday 14 October
Monday 21 October
Thursday 24 October
Monday 28 October
Thursday 31 October
The lectures free and open to all; no booking is required. The lectures will be livestreamed to YouTube.