LECTURES 2

Peter Marks explores the irony that George Orwell never experienced the fame, authority and controversy that his name and writing command over sixty years after his death.

George Orwell has been called the ‘most influential political writer of the twentieth century’ and ‘the greatest English essayist since Hazlitt’. He is credited with introducing the term ‘cold war’ in 1945.
He invented the terms Big Brother, Thought Police, doublethink and the telescreen.
The adjective Orwellian is used to describe government intrusion and malevolent power.
Peter Marks explores the irony that George Orwell never experienced the fame, authority and controversy that his name and writing command over sixty years after his death.
Peter Marks is Associate Professor at the Department of English University of Sydney, and gave this talk at Clare Hall, on 19 November 2013.

From Nineteen Eighty-Four to 2013 and beyond: The Surprising Legacy of George Orwell

Michael Loewe relates his personal experience of work at Bletchley Park during WW2. The high-level intelligence produced at Bletchley Park, codenamed Ultra, provided crucial assistance to the Allied war effort. Sir Harry Hinsley, a Bletchley veteran and the official historian of British Intelligence during the Second World War, believed that Ultra shortened the war by two to four years and that the outcome of the war would have been uncertain without it. 

Michael Loewe was recruited as a code breaker while still an undergraduate at Oxford.  He writes:

‘We were a mixed bag: highly distinguished scholars and mathematicians; senior officers of the armed services; eccentrics; wise men and fools; veterans, long experienced in ‘the game’; or, as some of us, undergraduates torn away from the dreaming spires of Oxford or the fens of East Anglia.

Codes and ciphers varied in their complexity.  There were the simple systems used solely to deny information to lower ranks in the German, Italian or Japanese forces.  There were the highly refined versions of the commercially available ‘Enigma’ machine and its successors, used by commanders in the field, captains of submarines or naval attachés. 

In some cases, once the key to reading a message was found or broken, it could be read in its entirety; but for some systems the work was never complete and did not allow more than a partial reading, perhaps with the key word (the name of a place or a ship) undecipherable.

Codes and ciphers were broken by exploiting basic information, such as the behaviour of units of a language or predicting parts of the content of a message.  Those struggling with their wits at the Park blessed the well worn habits, the careless errors or the laziness of the cipher clerks!  But a basic characteristic of the Enigma machine itself provided the way in.

Occasionally the British services themselves helped, e.g. by a specially planned military operation designed to capture documents, or by laying a minefield at sea to provide a reaction by signal.’

Bletchley Park Code Breaker 1942-45

Michael Loewe, is a University of Cambridge academic and renowned sinologist who has authored dozens of books, articles, and other publications in the fields of Classical Chinese and ancient Chinese history.

In this remarkable talk, he describes the twenty-five Chinese dynastic histories that range from 221 BCE to 1911, a continuous account without parallel anywhere and anytime, and he ponders over what these unique records do tell us about the Chinese sense of history.

China’s historical writings are voluminous, including the basic series of twenty-five dynastic histories that range from 221 BCE to 1911.  Officially sponsored, these works set out to prove the legitimacy of  rule that each house enjoyed, coupled with emphasis on the evil ways that brought its predecessor to ruin.

The compilers sought to set human activities within the inescapable cycles that govern the universe, writing with an air of superiority and and an isolationism that called for a single and harmonious rule of all mankind.  Such was what may be seen as the Chinese version of a Whig interpretation of history, flawed by pride and bias and giving rise to misconception.

Officials called on incidents of the past to explain the activities of the present. Exceptionally some Chinese scholar-historians adopted a highly critical stance, breaking away from traditional standpoints and periodisation.  China’s leading universities to-day accept the need for a critical approach and, despite sensitivity over some matters, they invite westerners to deliver lectures on China’s history to their students.  Splendid newly built museums, crowded by parties of school children, and carefully maintained archaeological sites testify to the serious presentation of China’s past to its inheritors of to-day.

China’s sense of history past and present

Michael Dunne analyses the legacy of JFK's presidency through speeches and other documents.

Michael Dunne - Kennedy: rhetoric, reality and recollections

Brigadier General Kevin Ryan (US Army retired), Director of the Defense and Intelligence Projects at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Simon Saradzhyan, Fellow and Assistant Director of the Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism at the Belfer Center joined Dr. Alexandra Vacroux, Executive Director, at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies in a discussion surrounding the upcoming Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The panel was moderated by former CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent and Spring 2014 Shorenstein Fellow Jill Dougherty and focused on security, human rights concerns, Russian foreign policy and the future of country’s domestic politics.

Russian Politics from Snowden to Sochi | Institute of Politics

Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn joined The New York Times National Security Correspondent David Sanger  for a discussion on “Accelerating Change: The Way Ahead for Defense Intelligence.” Lieutenant General Flynn discussed the conflict in Syria, including the potential for fundamental regional changes if the Syrian Civil War continues. He also addressed the NSA’s recent scandals and how the strongest effects of the Snowden revelations will be seen in the military. 

Accelerating Change: The Way Ahead for Defense Intelligence | Institute of Politics

Particularly after the European Union gave up its reluctance in late 2006 and became active in this regard, a huge number of free trade agreements have been concluded or are negotiated around the world, including some "mega" deals – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment partnership (TTIP) and the Transpacific Partnership (TPP). Such bilateral or regional initiatives are expected to largely benefit the economies at hand and to allow for progress, which has been rather poor in the multilateral setting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in recent years. However, the agreements also cause concerns. Beyond the many noteworthy details of these agreements, the question arises, what impact these agreements will have in more general terms. The recent discussion on the fragmentation of international law comes to mind in this regard. As had been observed in that context, fragmentation hardly can be understood as a purely accidental phenomenon. In many cases, it is a result of deliberation. Having said this, the further question arises, whether legal considerations or global interest set or should set limits to these new tendencies. An answer to this question requires exploring, whether there is indeed a world economic order and what it means in view of these trade agreements.

The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (LCIL), University of Cambridge hosts a regular Friday lunchtime lecture series on key areas of International Law. Previous subjects have included UN peacekeeping operations, the advisory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, the crime of aggression, whaling, children and military tribunals, and theories and practices for proving individual responsibility criminal responsibility for genocide and crimes against humanity.

This lecture, entitled 'Splendid fragmentation? The emergence of preferential trade agreements and the future of the world economic order', was delivered at the Lauterpacht Centre on Friday 31 January 2014 by Professor Peter-Tobias Stoll, Professor of Public and Public International Law, Georg-August Universitaet Goettingen.

Please note, the question and answer sections of LCIL lectures are omitted from the recording to facilitate a free and frank discussion with participants.

For more information about the series, please see the LCIL website at www.lcil.cam.ac.uk 

The emergence of preferential trade agreements and the future of the world economic order

Controversial libertarian author Charles Murray discussed his latest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010, with founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, William Kristol at the JFK Jr. Forum.  Murray touched on the effects of income inequality, secularization of the upper class, and changing norms for traditional marriage.

Is America Really "Coming Apart"? | Institute of Politics

Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns moderated a John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on the ongoing crisis in Syria with Former Deputy National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, Elliot Abrams, former Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith, and former Knesset member and co-founder of Israel’s “Peace Now” movement Avshalom Vilan. Panelists discussed the possibility of a U.S. intervention, either financially or militarily, along with regional instability and future geopolitical implications.

The Syrian Crisis: Its Impact on the U.S., the Middle East and the Next Generation

Former Director of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, Former Director of the CIA David Petraeus, and current Belfer Center Director Graham Allison discussed the possibility of peace in the Middle East with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran’s nuclear program, and the changing nature of national security organizations.

Israel, Iran and the Arab Revolution | Institute of Politics

Historian David Reynolds re-examines the differing impacts of WWI on Britain, Ireland and the United States, The Long Shadow throws light on the whole of the last century and demonstrates that the First World War is a conflict from which Britain, more than any other nation, is still recovering.

The Long Shaddow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century

Jonathan Haslam, Professor of the History of International Relations
The history of Russia’s Secret Services from the Revolution to the Fall of the Wall: the Military Intelligence, the codes and ciphers and the KGB. 

Near and Distant Neighbours 1917–1989

Mr Dwight Smith Jr will speak about ‘The Mafia & Conspiracy’. Mr Smith’s paper will explore how the idea of the mafia and conspiracy emerged in America, developed and became entangled in very different contexts.

Mr Smith will describe the ideas, experiences, and events through which his book, ‘The Mafia Mystique’ (1975), took shape; the consequences of those events that have led to contemporary public understanding and use of ‘Mafia’ in the United States; and the consequences in a democracy of strategies that were developed for organized crime control. 

The Mafia & Conspiracy

This paper examines British and American anticommunist conspiracy theories in the 1920s and 1930s. In both countries, former wartime intelligence agency chiefs set up private intelligence networks in the post-World War I era to spy upon and blacklist radicals -- and, not incidentally, to monitor and control labour union leaders. Also in both countries, businessmen created and lavishly funded anticommunist propaganda organizations. The propagandists in each country exploited quite different anxieties, yet they shared the same goal: to use the fear of communism as a weapon in the struggle against organized labour.


Kathy Olmsted is professor and chair of history at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI; Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley; and Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11. 

Anglo-American Conservatism and the Transatlantic Threat between the World Wars

Welcome to the Science and Policy Seminars Podcast, brought to you by the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge. 
The Seminar series brings together different perspectives and new thinking on the relationship between scientific expertise, policy and politics.
To learn more about the Centre for Science and Policy, and our work in promoting engagement between researchers and policy professionals, please visit www.csap.cam.ac.uk.  


Prof Michael Kenny - Changing ideas of statecraft in an ever loosening Union

The news tends to focus on the antagonism between India and Pakistan. A distinguished panel of academics – Dr Kamal Munir, Dr Ornit Shani, Dr  Bhaskar Vira and Professor Joya Chatterji –
look at the common ground between the two countries. 


India-Pakistan: the common ground at Hay Festival

Ideas about states of emergency go back to Ancient Rome in which it was said that necessity knows no law. This idea took on different meanings during the early modern period and was employed again in 1848 to justify emergency rule in Paris. The idea was inverted by Marx. It was no longer emergency that justified dictatorship—dictatorship was posited as a desirable outcome in a transition to new forms of society.

The genesis of 20th C political authoritarianism by Prof Gareth Stedman Jones

In 1815, two large armies faced each other at Waterloo. Unknown either to Napoleon or Wellington, the battle would be decided by a small, ordinary group of British and German troops.

Did the Germans win the battle of Waterloo? by Professor Brendan Simms

In the age of Charlemagne, Rome was not just associated with the glory of classical and late antique empire, but above all with an authentic Christianity. North of the Alps, rulers and aristocrats created a virtual Rome by importing relics as well as liturgical practices that were thought of as typically Roman.

Charlemagne, Rome and the management of sacred space by Professor Rosamond McKitterick

Despite recent assertions to the contrary, Prof Matthew Kramer argues that there can never be any moral justification for torture.

LECTURES 2

Vincent Moissac-Vignoux