The fourth annual Ubbelohde Lecture will be held Sept. 22 with Linda Colley, the Shelby MC Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University. Colley will discuss “Britain, the Written Constitution, and World History” in a lecture at Thwing Center’s 1914 Lounge. The free, public lecture begins at 6:30 p.m. with a wine and dessert reception following at 8 p.m. Find more information here.
After the American and French Revolutions, new written constitutions came to be viewed as essential markers of a modern state and as vital expressions of national culture and political rights. Great Britain, however, opposed these revolutions and has notoriously always retained an un-codified constitution. Despite this, Britain’s impact on the writing of constitutions in other countries—both inside and outside its onetime empire—has arguably been more extensive and more varied than that of any other power. In this lecture, Colley examines this paradox, and what it reveals about world history, British history and the multiple meanings of constitution writing.
The Ubbelohde Lecture is an endowed lecture series sponsored by History Associates in memory of Carl Ubbelohde, an admired professor and former chair of the Case Western Reserve University Department of History.