Living Apart, Living Together? The Role of Intergroup Contact in Social Integration

This lecture presents the text of the speech about the role of intergroup contact in social integration delivered by the author at the 2006 Joint British Academy/British Psychological Society Lecture held at the British Academy. It explores the different perspectives on mixing and considers what can be learned from available data. The lecture discusses different types of intergroup contact and explains the policy implications of intergroup contact based on social-psychological theory.

A Genealogy of the Modern State

This lecture presents the text of the speech about the genealogy of the modern state delivered by the author at the 2008 British Academy Lecture. It explains that to investigate the genealogy of the state is to discover that there has never been any agreed concept to which the word state has answered. The lecture suggests that any moral or political term that has become so deeply enmeshed in so many ideological disputes over such a long period of time is bound to resist any efforts at definition.

Reason and Identity

This lecture presents the text of the speech about reason and identity delivered by the author at the 2008 Isaiah Berlin Lecture held at the British Academy. It discusses the style and content of Sir Isaiah Berlin's thought and explores the complex relation between the closely connected ideas of reason and identity. The lecture explains that reason and identity are both constitutive features of human life in the sense that human beings cannot be defined and understood without reference to either.

Continuity and Change in a Wessex Landscape

This lecture presents the text of the speech about the continuity and change in the Wessex landscape delivered by the author at the 2008 Albert Reckitt Archaeological Lecture held at the British Academy. It describes the Wessex landscape as an area of chalkland situated in the centre of the chalk uplands of southern Britain, highlights the results of archaeological excavations in Wessex, and describes the principal types of settlement in the area.

Deities, Devils, and Dams: Elizabeth I, Dover Harbour and the Family of Love

This lecture presents the text of the speech about Elizabeth I Queen of England delivered by the author at the 2008 Raleigh Lecture on History held at the British Academy. It explores the religious movement called the Family of Love and discusses Sir Walter Raleigh's knowledge about the discourse on Dover Harbour, which was later spuriously attributed to him. The lecture provides an excerpt and interpretation of Queen Elizabeth's poem titled On Monsieur's Departure.

Wordsworth and the Druids

This lecture presents the text of the speech about English poet William Wordsworth and the druids delivered by the author at the 2008 Warton Lecture on English Poetry held at the British Academy. It provides an analysis of the beginning of Book III of The Excursion and explains the concepts of the Poet, the Wanderer, and the Solitary. The lecture suggests that Wordsworth's characters inhabit a common land until modernity takes it away from them, and that this dissolves the natural regenerative seasonal cycle in which humans now find it so difficult to live and work.

Auden Unparadized

This lecture presents the text of the speech about English poet W.H. Auden delivered by the author at the 2008 Chatterton Lecture on Poetry held at the British Academy. It discusses criticism on Auden as a poet who somehow lived beyond the early moment of his greatest and most amazing genius, and as one whose latest effort represented nothing less than the decline and fall of modernist poetry. The lecture also provides a critical analysis of some of Auden's most notable works.

Instruments of Development: Randomisation in the Tropics, and the Search for the Elusive Keys to Economic Development

This lecture presents the text of the speech about economic development delivered by the author at the 2008 Keynes Lecture in Economics held at the British Academy. It examines macro and micro kinds of economic assistance and evaluates how assistance works. The lecture suggests that econometric methodology needs to be assessed, not only by methodologists but also by those who are concerned with the substance of the issue.

The Alfredian Project and its Aftermath: Rethinking the Literary History of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries

This lecture presents the text of the speech about the Alfredian project and its aftermath delivered by the author at the 2008 Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture held at the British Academy. It explains the details of King Alfred's programme of mass education and to deliver near-universal literacy in English, and evaluates the impact of Pastoral Care on English literature.

Ending the Russian Revolution: Reflections on Soviet History and its Interpreters

This lecture presents the text of the speech about the ending of the Russian Revolution delivered by the author at the 2008 Elie Kedourie Memorial Lecture held at the British Academy. It addresses the problems for historians in determining the meaning and moral of a revolution. The lecture analogizes the French and Russian Revolution and suggests that the Russian Revolution and its historiography has always been to some extent in the shadow of the French.