Gresham College Lectures

China has important islands of technological excellence, even dominance, but these islands exist in a sea of macroeconomic imbalances and headwinds. Xi Jinping is adamant that by focusing on technology, and other aspects of national security, China can hold sway in the global system and determine global governance. Many western economists and even some in China are not so sure, choosing to wonder if the government has the political capacity to address deep-seated economic problems.

This lecture was recorded by George Magnus on the 3rd of November 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

George Magnus is a Research  Associate at the China Centre, Oxford University, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, a Member of the China Foresight Forum at LSE IDEAS, and an advisory board member of the China Observatory, a non-partisan initiative at the Council on Geostrategy. 

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/china-economics

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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We often talk about living on a blue planet, but when we think we’re talking about the ocean we’re generally only discussing what’s in it: fish, whales, pollution and ships. But that is to miss the biggest story on Earth, because it’s the water itself that sets the scene for everything else. This lecture will outline how the ocean engine works – its internal anatomy, how the components move, and how this engine has directly influenced our history and culture.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Helen Czerski on the 30th of October 2025 at Bernards Inn Hall, London

Dr Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer with a passion for science, sport, books, creativity, hot chocolate and investigating the interesting things in life. 

She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London and her research focus is the physics of breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface. These bubbles change underwater sound and light, help transfer gases from ocean to atmosphere (helping the ocean breathe) and also eject ocean material into the air. She has spent months working on research ships in the Antarctic, the Pacific, the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and is an experienced field scientist. 

Helen has been a regular science presenter on the BBC for 15 years, covering the physics of the natural world in BBC2 landmark documentaries (including ‘Orbit’, ‘Operation iceberg’ and ‘Supersenses’), and the physics of everyday life in a range of BBC4 documentaries (including ‘From ice to fire: The incredible science of temperature’, ‘Sound waves: The symphony of physics’, and ‘Colour: The spectrum of science’, along  with many others). She currently co-hosts BBC Radio 4’s flagship climate and environment programme Rare Earth. 

Helen's first book Storm in a Teacup won the Italian Asimov Prize and the Louis J. Battan Author prize from the American Meteorological Society. Blue Machine won the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. She was awarded the Institute of Physics Gold Medal in 2018 for her work on physics communication, and an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association in 2020. She has been a Trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich since 2018, and was one of the 2020 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturers, giving her Lecture on the topic of the ocean. 

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/liquid-engine

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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Do animals make music? Are the languages of whales and birds truly songs? To answer this, we must first understand what we mean by music as human animals—and how it might emerge across the animal kingdom. From Messiaen’s transcriptions of bird calls to the rhythmic gaits of horses echoing in the blues, we’ll hear how animal behaviours form an unwitting orchestra and explore whether music is uniquely human or a shared language with our animal cousins.

This lecture was recorded by Milton Mermikides on the 29th of October 2025 at LSO St Luke’s, London

Milton Mermikides is a composer, guitarist, technologist, academic and educator in a wide range of musical styles and has collaborated with artists and scientists as diverse as Evelyn Glennie, Tim Minchin, Pat Martino, Peter Zinovieff, John Williams and Brian Eno. Son of a CERN nuclear physicist, he was raised with an enthusiasm for both the arts and sciences, an eclecticism which has been maintained throughout his teaching, research and creative career. 

He is a graduate of the London School of Economics (BSc), Berklee College of Music (BMus) and the University of Surrey (PhD). He has lectured, exhibited and given keynote presentations at organisations like the Royal Academy of Music, TEDx, Royal Musical Association, British Library, Smithsonian Institute and The Science Museum and his work has been featured extensively in the press. His music, research and graphic art are published and featured by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony and more, and he has won awards, scholarships and commendations for writing, teaching, research and his charity work.      

Milton is Professor of Music at the University of Surrey, Professor of Guitar at the Royal College of Music, Deputy Director of the International Guitar Research Centre, an Ableton Certified Trainer, and lives in London with his wife, the guitarist Bridget Mermikides and their daughter Chloe. He is also a Vice-Chair of Governors at Addison Primary School, a state school which foregrounds music education, offering free instrumental lessons for all on Pupil Premium. 

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/music-animals

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/v0RoRG2YA-0

Why has automation anxiety – the fear that new technologies cause mass unemployment – proven wrong over the centuries? This lecture explores how technology affects the labour market. While new technologies can substitute for workers, reducing demand for their efforts at certain activities, they can also complement them, increasing demand for them to do activities that haven’t been automated. Historically, people have focused on the former, harmful force and underestimated – or ignored – the latter helpful force. Today, headlines all too often make the same mistake.

This lecture was recorded by Daniel Susskind on the 10th October 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

Dr Daniel Susskind is a writer and economist. He explores the impact of technology, and particularly AI, on work and society. He is a Research Professor at King’s College London, a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, a Digital Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and an Associate Member of the Economics Department at Oxford University.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/economics-work

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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How might we change the way we – and all our leaders think – so that we never go to war? 

The war between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the conflict in Gaza, have galvanised thinking about, and action by, the bodies administering, the laws of war. 

National court processes - applying ‘universal jurisdiction’ for example – may bring international war criminals to justice. Informal processes can provide material capable of developing national laws and of providing evidence to assist the formal courts. But do these processes do anything to protect from future wars?

This lecture was recorded by Professor Geoffrey Nice on 21th October 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

Sir Geoffrey Nice KC has practised as a barrister since 1971.  He worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia – the ICTY – between 1998 and 2006 and led the prosecution of Slobodan Milošević, former President of Serbia.

Much of his work since has been connected to cases before the permanent International Criminal Court – Sudan, Kenya, Libya – or  pro bono for victims groups – Iran, Burma, North Korea – whose cases cannot get to any international court.  He works for several related NGO’s and lectures and commentates in the media in various countries on international war crimes issues.  He has been a part-time judge since 1984 sitting at the Old Bailey and has sat as judge in other jurisdictions, tribunals and inquiries.  Between 2009 and 2012 he was Vice-Chair of the Bar Standards Board, the body that regulates barristers.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/whither-war

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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When – and how – did Athenian democracy begin? There is no unambiguous answer to this question. This lecture explores one plausible origin: the popular uprising in 508 BCE overthrowing foreign invaders (who had previously expelled an Athenian-bred family of tyrants). In the aftermath of that revolution, the Athenians – led by Kleisthenes – reorganised their political system to foster new identities and interactions. As further political and social changes were made, Athenian democracy took shape in the imaginations of contemporaries and of later generations.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Melissa lane on the 16th of October 2025 at Barnards Inn Hall, London.

Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.

She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.

Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.

Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/tyranny-democracy

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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This lecture is about the meaning of China and being Chinese. It examines critically how the Chinese state, under the control of the Communist Party defines them. It highlights the historical reality that the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan adopted different political systems. The Communist Party installed a powerful Leninist party-state on the Mainland. Laisses-faire British colonial rule gloomed Hong Kong people to desire democratization. Taiwan has become a vibrant democracy. This lecture address how such realities should influence how we understand China and Chineseness.

This lecture was recorded by Steve Tsang on the 15th of October 2025 at Bernards Inn Hall, London

Steve Tsang is Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Institute, SOAS, London. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford. 

He previously served as the Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies and as Director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham.  Before that he spent 29 years at Oxford University, where he earned his D.Phil. and worked as a Professorial Fellow, Dean, and Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St Antony’s College. 

He has a broad area of research interest and has published extensively, including five single authored and fourteen collaborative books.  His latest (with Olivia Cheung) is The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (Oxford University Press, 2024).  He is currently completing a new book, ‘China’s Global Strategy under Xi Jinping’, which will be published by OUP in 2026. 

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/china-lessons

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/3LrIEG26m78

War's environmental legacies disproportionately burden the civilian populations left behind. While research focuses on combatant exposures, civilians face chronic contamination from heavy metals, chemical residues, unexploded ordnance, and asbestos, often exacerbated by disrupted infrastructure and psychological trauma. Framed through the exposome, this lecture highlights the need for greater research and policy focus on these long-term, low-level exposures and their impact on civilian health, advocating for remediation, care, and environmental justice.

This lecture was recorded by Dr Ian Mudway on 14th October 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London

Ian is Visiting Professor of Environmental Health.

He is a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at Imperial, a member of the MRC Centre for Environment and Health; MRC & Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma and the NIHR-PHE Health Protection Research Units in Environmental Exposures and Health and Chemical and Radiation Threats and Hazards.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/toxic-war

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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How is mathematical knowledge recorded and preserved across generations? Contrary to the idea that mathematics itself is somehow ‘permanent’, in this talk we will explore heritage-making in mathematics, that is the people, institutions, and material objects that can give mathematical ideas longevity. We will explore the heritage-making found in two very different types of French nineteenth-century libraries: those of famous mathematicians and those of secondary schools. We will especially focus on how the recording – and forgetting – of mathematical ideas is influenced by their publishing, political, and intellectual contexts.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Caroline Ehrhardt on 8th October 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

Caroline Ehrhardt is Professor of History of Science and Deputy Director of IDHE.S at Université Paris 8 professor in history of science at the Université Paris 8 (France). Her research concerns the history of mathematics in France and Europe (1789–1914). She has published on Evariste Galois, on Galois theory and on mathematics education.

Caroline is currently coordinating a collective project funded by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche, entitled ‘Heritage and patrimonialisation of mathematics, 18th-20th centuries’. She also focuses on the practice of mathematics within French life insurance companies, on interactions between the mathematical and actuarial communities, and the production of mortality tables.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/heritage-maths

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/

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The natural world faces unprecedented threats, challenging historical perceptions of nature as inexhaustible. Photographer Tim Flach draws on his acclaimed works, including Endangered, More Than Human, and Birds, to reveal how photography transcends traditional wildlife representation. By employing critical anthropomorphism and human portraiture techniques, Flach’s images foster empathy and kinship with animals. Collaborating with social scientists, he illustrates how visual storytelling evokes emotional responses and inspires conservation action, showcasing the profound intersection of art, science, and social awareness in the Anthropocene.

This lecture was recorded by Tim Flach on the 2nd of October 2025 at Barnards Inn Hall, London

Renowned photographer Tim Flach is known for his stylised animal portraits. He has dedicated his career to documenting biodiversity and conveying empathy for our planet’s endangered creatures. Driven by a desire to share stories of the natural world, he collaborates with scientists to research how imagery can better lead to pro-environmental outcomes. 

He has seven main bodies of work which have been exhibited worldwide, including shows at the Museums of Natural History, from Paris to Beijing. He has six internationally award-winning books translated into multiple languages. His latest publication, Feline, is scheduled for release in Fall 2025. 

Tim holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Arts London (Norwich) and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. He is a Senior Research Fellow (Artist in Residence) at the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, University of Oxford, and currently serves as President of the Association of Photographers.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/animal-portraiture

Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today

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