Traditional historical narratives focus closely on Europe, and above all on Western Europe. The distortion this creates for how we look at the past – and how we understand the contemporary world – present major challenges for scholars and policy-makers alike. This lecture will seek to provide some context for why it is so important to change our perspectives, along with some suggestions as to how this can be best achieved.

Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he is Stavros Niarchos Foundation Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and Senior Research Fellow of Worcester College. His book, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World topped the Non-Fiction charts all around the world, including in the UK, India and China. In 2018, it was named as one of the 25 most important books translated into Chinese, along with The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice. His most recent book is The New Silk Roads: A The present and Future of the World won the Carical Prize for Social Sciences.

(Seminars start at 5.00 p.m.)