On the Challenges and Purposes of Global History, RHS Prothero Lecture by Peter Frankopan (University of Oxford), Mary Ward House, London, and Online, July 3, 2024, 6:30 pm BST

In this year’s Prothero Lecture, Peter Frankopan will ask what is global history; should historians think globally – and is it even possible to do so? How does macro-history fit alongside microhistories and regional and periodic specialisations; and what do these questions mean for the teaching of history at school and university?

In a wide-ranging lecture that will include examples from Mesopotamia to the Indus Valley, from Mesoamerica and the Classic Maya period to the ages of the Silk Roads, Professor Frankopan will talk about the problems of traditional periodisation and regionalisation and show how global history can be instructive and helpful from teaching at primary school level to high-level academic research to public history.

Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he is Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford. He is also Professor of Silk Roads Studies and a Bye-Fellow at King's College, Cambridge.

First given in 1968, the Prothero Lecture is one of the high points of the Royal Historical Society's annual events programme. 

Advance registration required.