Keynote Lecture: Edward Gibbon, Roman Empire, and Imagining De-Colonization

Friday, 5 June 2026, 4pm to 5.30pm

The Oxford Centre for Global and Imperial History is thrilled to announce our Trinity Term Event for 2026!

We are delighted to have Professor Dame Linda Colley joining us on Friday 5 June 2026 to deliver a keynote lecture on 'Edward Gibbon, Roman Empire, and Imagining De-Colonization'.

Between 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, and 1788, the year before the French Revolution, Edward Gibbon published his multi-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Utilized from the outset by political activists and journalists, the work circulated in multiple formats and was progressively translated into multiple Western and non-Western languages. Linda Colley analyzes how a book seemingly to do only with ancient empire, came to be read, cited and studied by individuals critical in different ways of forms of empire
in the modern world.

Speaker(s): Professor Dame Linda Colley

Venue: Nuffield College - Lecture Theatre - Lecture Theatre Nuffield College New Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX1 1NF United Kingdom

Department: History (Department)

Host: Oxford Centre for Global History

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/3mh6e38d