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Lecture "Britain’s Brexits"

The Department of Historical Sociology cordially invites you to a lecture "Britain’s Brexits" given by Prof. Dennis Smith (Loughborough University). The lecture takes place in Jinonice on October 21.

Abstract of the lecture:

Brexit – the project of trying to leave the EU – has roots deep in history, reaching back to the Tudors. The key historical phase was the rise and fall of the British Empire. That cruel and immoral enterprise was in tune with its time. Its rise and fall sent bemused Brits through open Brexit windows on four occasions: two defenestrations (in 1947 and 1956) were engineered by ex-colonial subject and ex-warrior comrades who saw no reason to satisfy British demands any longer; two others (in 1533 and 2016) were brought about, carelessly, by short-sighted British rulers (a king and a premier) who gambled with national interests to advance short-term dynastic or party ambitions. Will the nation outgrow the imperial myth or will pursuing that myth disintegrate the nation?

Dennis Smith, emeritus professor at Loughborough, was initiated as a historian at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and as a sociologist at LSE and Leicester University. His books include Civilized Rebels. An Inside Story of the West’s Retreat from Global Power (Routledge),The Rise of Historical Sociology (Polity), Zygmunt Bauman (Polity), Globalization. The Hidden Agenda (Polity), Capitalist Democracy on Trial (Routledge),Norbert Elias and Modern Social Theory (Sage), Barrington Moore. Violence, Morality and Political Change (Macmillan), Conflict and Compromise. Class Formation in English Society 1830-1914 (Routledge), and (with Sue Wright) Whose Europe. The Turn Towards Democracy (Blackwell). He has been Vice-President of the European Sociological Association and Managing Editor of Sociological Reviewand Current Sociology (ISA journal).