History

Dominic Sandbrook

Adventures in Time: The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sat 30 Saturday, 30 October 2021 See this event
Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper Chaired by Matthew Stadlen

Changing the World: The Women of Westminster and Great Women Speakers SOLD OUT
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 30 Oct Saturday, 30 October 2021 See this event
Emma Soames

Mary Churchill’s War: The Wartime Diaries of Churchill’s Youngest Daughter
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sun 31 Sunday, 31 October 2021 See this event
Richard Ovenden

Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 31 Sunday, 31 October 2021 See this event
Tristram Hunt

The Radical Potter: Josiah Wedgwood and the Transformation of Britain
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sun 31 Sunday, 31 October 2021 See this event
Marc David Baer Interviewed by Nick Higham

The Ottomans: Khans, Caesers, and Caliphs
Sheldonian Theatre 4:00pm Sun 31 Sunday, 31 October 2021 See this event
Martyn Bond

Voices of Europe. Hitler’s Cosmopolitan Bastard: Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 See this event
Clive Aslet

The Story of the Country House: A History of Places and People
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 7 Sunday, 7 November 2021 See this event
Iain MacGregor Interviewed by Michael Crick

Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth SOLD OUT
Weston Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sun 7 Nov Sunday, 7 November 2021 See this event

Festival information:

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: - the size of the audience: at the top end of the range - their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted - the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable - the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.

The night in Oxford was the most beautiful event I have ever done. Not just the spectacular setting (of the Sheldonian), but an unforgettable evening.