Web Stories
Tanner lectures focus on 'empires,' April 19-20
Posted April 13, 2006; 03:15 p.m.
Emma Rothschild, director of the Centre for History and Economics
and a fellow of King's College at the University of Cambridge, will
deliver the Tanner Lectures on Human Values Wednesday and Thursday,
April 19-20.
She will address the topic, "The Inner Life of Empires," at 4:30 p.m.
each day in McCosh 50. She intends to explore the history of values by
looking at a family from Scotland, the Johnstones, at a time of
transformation in Britain's overseas empire in the mid- to late-18th
century.
The first lecture, "The Johnstones and the Empire," will examine some
of the difficulties involved in writing a history of values, including
the values of individuals who were not themselves theorists or
philosophers. The second lecture, "The History of Sentiments," will
conclude the story of the Johnstones, and of their involvement with the
East Indies, Africa and America.
Two scholars will serve as commentators for each lecture.
Rothschild is the author of "Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet
and the Enlightenment" (Harvard University Press, 2001). She has
written extensively on economic history and the history of economic
thought, and is completing a new book about the East India Co. and the
American Revolution.
The lectures are sponsored by the University Center for Human Values.