Gresham College provides outstanding educational talks and videos for the public free of charge. There are over 2,500 videos available on our website. Your support will help us to encourage people's love of learning for many years to come.
Protestant settlers in the Americas believed it was their duty to convert indigenous peoples to the true Gospel. Yet the task proved unexpectedly difficult. The effort revealed and challenged deep European assumptions about culture and the nature of Christianity itself. From Massachusetts to Chile, Protestant would-be missionaries took roads that were paved mostly, but not entirely, with good intentions. This lecture will show where they led.
Were the Crusades an early example of European colonialism? What value did the crusading frontier hold for the knights who fought to defend it? What was the relationship between the Crusades and the knightly culture of chivalry?
This lecture will explore Napoleon‘s life through his interactions with the natural world and a series of gardens that were important to him during the rise and fall of his power. The point of doing this is to approach his life from oblique angles, exploring material that is often overlooked.
Despite the controversy, evolution was widely accepted by many naturalists within a few years of the Origin’s appearance. An important reason for this rapid triumph was Darwin’s botanical works. Seen through evolutionary eyes, plants proved to be mobile, carnivorous, sensitive – even crafty.
London in the 1950s and 60s was a crucible in which West Indian writers, artists, thinkers and scholars imagined new futures for the Caribbean, Britain and the world.