New Work In Intellectual History

New Work In Intellectual History

By Institute of Intellectual HistorySociety & CultureEducationHistoryPhilosophy
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New Work In Intellectual History episodes

  • Liberalism Against Itself – Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times
    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 book, Samuel Moyn
    argues that the intellectual architects of Cold War liberalism truncated
    the liberal tradition and thereby left a disastrous legacy, leaving
    liberals unable to address the problems that face us today.
    1 hr 10 min
  • Europe Against Revolution
    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 surprising, with
    critics of the French Revolution often being proponents of cultural and
    religious diversity, cosmopolitanism and political moderation that they
    viewed as unique to Europe. They believed themselves to be the true heirs
    of the European Enlightenment, rather than the radical materialist atheists
    who had taken over France.
    44 min
  • Welfare for Markets - A Global History of Basic Income
    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 popularity among
    ‘techno-populists’ in Silicon Valley. They describe how the idea gained
    traction in the United States and Europe in the 1960s as a market-friendly
    alternative to the postwar welfare state and how interest in the policy has
    grown in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and again after the COVID-19
    crisis.
    1 hr 3 min
  • Scarcity - A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis
    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. Society must therefore
    facilitate endless growth and consumption – regardless of the limitations
    of the natural environment. Jonsson and Wennerlind examine the intellectual
    origin and context of this vision of scarcity and demonstrate its
    historical contingency, even in the age of capitalism. It reflects the
    triumph of infinite-growth ideologies at the expense of all other
    conceptions of scarcity that sought to live within nature’s constraints.
    1 hr 18 min
  • Contract Before the Enlightenment
    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 centrality of
    calvinism to Stair’s understanding of law and contract.
    Stephen Bogle is Senior Lecturer in Private Law, University of Glasgow.
    41 min
  • The Case of Ireland: Commerce, Empire and the European Order
    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 Wars
    and their effects on Ireland and on the British perception of Ireland, and
    the continental critique of Britain’s failure to address the issues of the
    Irish economy.
    1 hr 19 min
  • Albert Venn Dicey: Writings on Democracy and the Referendum
    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.
    36 min
  • Women Philosophers in Nineteenth Century Britain
    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
    position women held in nineteenth century intellectual life and what it
    means to do philosophy.
    Alison Stone is professor of philosophy at Lancaster University.
    1 hr 5 min
  • Adam Smith’s America
    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 sought to
    recover Smith’s original intentions and restore his reputation as a moral
    philosopher.
    Glory M. Liu is a college fellow in social studies at Harvard University.
    1 hr 36 min
  • America's Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life
    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
    significant.
    Claire Rydell Arcenas is associate professor of history at the University
    of Montana.
    1 hr 12 min

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