Search | Gresham College

Christmas Lies and Legends

Is Santa really Dutch? Were Christmas Trees introduced by Prince Albert? Was Christmas once a time of faith, rather than riotous feasting?

England’s Unwanted Reformation

Most English people initially saw the Reformation as an unexpected catastrophe, wrenching their religious lives out of shape, and stripping their communities of resources they had naively believed belonged to them.

Russian Piano Masterpieces: Rachmaninov

Rachmaninov is considered by many to be the greatest composer-pianist in history. But his very popularity has left the complexity and subtlety of his music underappreciated.

Snow White: Evil Witches

The Brothers Grimm’s tale of Snow White has been retold dozens of times in print and the cinema over the past two centuries. A central character is the Evil Queen, Snow White’s malevolent stepmother, who tries to kill her with the help of the occult.

Loving Animals: Historical Reflections on Bestiality, Zoophilia and Post-Human Love

What is meant by ‘love’ between human and nonhuman animals? Why is sex with animals such a taboo? It is only in very recent years that some people have begun to undermine the absolute prohibition on zoosexuality. Are their arguments dangerous, perverted, or simply wrongheaded?

Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites

Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) is one of the most recognisable and romanticised figures of British history. Born in Rome as a Catholic prince on 31 December 1720, he led the Jacobite Rising of 1745, which came closer than anyone expected to changing Great Britain irrevocably.

Eve’s Evil Legacies

Eve was the original Evil Woman. She was tempted by Satan, introducing sin into the world. In turn, she seduced Adam, bringing the wrath of the Creator upon humanity for all eternity.

Russian Piano Masterpieces: Musorgsky

Musorgsky was a proficient, but not virtuosic pianist, and most of his piano music is comprised of unambitious salon pieces. On the basis of these modest exploits, no one could have predicted his Pictures at an Exhibition.

William And Mary: The Court Divided

Like James I, King William III was fundamentally unhappy with the stuffy formality of England’s vast crumbling royal estate. But unlike James, who virtually abandoned Edinburgh, William maintained a second court, and a parallel suite of royal houses, in the Netherlands.

War Games at the Field of the Cloth of Gold

2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, one of the most extraordinary diplomatic events of the late medieval period.

Suggested searches:

For the Love of Learning since 1597

Popular topics:

Search results