PODCAST

New Work In Intellectual History

Institute of Intellectual History

Listen to interviews with intellectual historians about recent research and new publications.

history philosophy

All Episodes

Contract Before the Enlightenment

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2023/08/10

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 innovations in Stair’s Institutions of the Law of Scotland (1681), and the reception of Stair’s ideas in the 18th century. We also discuss the

The Case of Ireland: Commerce, Empire and the...

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2023/07/06

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; Adam Smith’s proposal for a Union between Britain and Ireland; the prospect of Ireland becoming a free port for international trade; the Napoleonic

Albert Venn Dicey: Writings on Democracy and the...

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2023/06/13

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 Greg Conti here. Gregory Conti is Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University.

Women Philosophers in Nineteenth Century Britain

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2023/04/14

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 part of bigger intellectual networks in order to develop their own original contributions. Women Philosophers encourages the reader to reassess the

Adam Smith’s America

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2023/03/01

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 preeminent theorist of free markets and self-interest. Liu also explores how a new generation of political theorists and public intellectuals has

America's Philosopher: John Locke in American...

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2023/02/17

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 early eighteenth century to the late twentieth suggests that successive generations of American readers found different aspects of Locke thought to be

Free Market – The History of an Idea

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2023/02/04

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 suggests that studying the history of economic thought back to Cicero suggests praise for free markets was usually bound up with Ciceronian moral

The Material Side of Enlightened Reformism

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/08/11

In this episode, Dr Lavinia Maddaluno discusses the role of scientific practices in the production of political economic ideas in Enlightenment Milan. Discussing her upcoming monograph Science and political economy in enlightened Milan (1760s-1815), Lavinia explores the role played by lesser known naturalists in answering political economic questions of how to preserve and increase state wealth. Dr Lavinia Maddaluno is an early modern historian and historian of science. Her research so far

Uncivil Mirth: Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/07/28

In this episode, Robin Mills talks to Dr Ross Carroll about his recently published book Uncivil Mirth – Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain (Princeton, 2021). Ross Carroll examines how leading Enlightenment thinkers thought about the purpose, possibilities and limits of public discourse in their search for an acceptable form of ridicule, one that supported religious toleration, the abolition of the slave trade, and the dismantling of patriarchal power. Focussing on Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Hume and

History and Historiography in Classical...

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/07/21

One perspective on the classical utilitarians (Bentham, James and John Stuart Mill) is that they built their political philosophies on abstract reasoning and without regard for history. The charge has some weight, but it's also a charge they responded to, as Callum Barrell explains. Bentham et al – Barrell adds George Grote to the mix – were more interested in history than we give them credit for and this needs to be factored in when analysing their thought. Dr Callum Barrell is Associate

The Historiographical Value of Historians’...

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/07/14

In this episode, Dr Jaume Aurell talks about the value of twentieth-century historians’ autobiographies as intellectual artefacts of historiographical and academic intervention. He traces a trend in autobiographies throughout the twentieth century to move from a documentary to an interventional perspective and uncovers what he means by the term “interventional historians”. Dr Jaume Aurell is Professor at the Department of History at the University of Navarra in Spain. His research focusses on

Gibbon’s Christianity - Religion, Reason, and the...

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/07/07

Who can refute a sneer? asked William Paley of Edward Gibbon’s bitingly satirical account of the emergence of Christianity in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1789). The plausibility of Paley’s characterisation indicates that maybe, Dr Hugh Liebert suggests, Gibbon’s acumen as a historian of religion has been ignored. An ironic philosophical historian he certainly was but Gibbon was also an astute psychologist of religion able to empathetically understand, even admire, early

Anti-democracy in England 1570-1642

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/06/30

In this episode, Dr Cesare Cuttica re-examines the idea of democracy in early modern England in his latest book Anti-democracy in England 1570-1642 (Oxford University Press). The main premise of his original interpretation is that democracy did not exist, and in fact, it was seen as a threat to the way of life. Contemporary democratic ideas were dangerous, immoral and were associated with the uneducated commonalty.

The Political Thought of Thomas Spence

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/06/23

Our guest this episode is Dr Matilde Cazzola who introduces us to the ultra-radical English thinker and activist Thomas Spence (1750–1814), famous for his “Plan” for the abolition of private land ownership. Often dismissed as an eccentric anachronistic figure, Spence is shown by Cazzola to be a fascinating political agitator aiming for the overturning of the ancien regime in favour of the “swinish multitude”. He is also, Cazzola contends, a subtle thinker with something to contribute to

Adam Smith Reconsidered

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/06/17

Is Adam Smith an apologist for capitalism who viewed it as the fourth and final stage of socio-economic development? Was Smith provoked into his moral and economic defence of capitalism by Rousseau’s Second Discourse? Much current Smith literature would suggest the answer to both questions is yes. But, perhaps, questions like these indicate that something has gone very wrong with our interpretations of Smith? Paul Sagar thinks so. We explore what needs to change and why in this conversation

The Post-Medieval Reception of Medieval Manuscripts

New Work In Intellectual History ·

2022/06/09

In this episode Prof Margaret Connolly talks about the post-medieval reception of medieval texts. Along a selection of eight manuscripts, Margaret traces how three generations of a sixteenth-century family from Middlesex read and used books from the fifteenth century. Examining their annotations of the fifteenth-century manuscripts, Margaret derives insights about the relevance of medieval contents for sixteenth-century readers and places the individual personae into the context of the English

36 results

New Work In Intellectual History

All Episodes

Similar Podcasts

The Old Front Line

Paul Reed

Today In History with The Retrospectors

The Retrospectors

جنود خلدهم التاريخ

ALSUMOOD PODCAST

Film History - Daily

Inception Point Ai

Madonna - Biography Flash

Inception Point Ai