Economics

Wolfgang Münchau

Kaput: The End of the German Miracle
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 30 Sunday, 30 March 2025 See this event
John Kay and Julia Hobsbawm

The Future of Work and Business
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Tue 1 Tuesday, 1 April 2025 See this event
Keir Giles, Stephanie Baker and Mark Galeotti

The Russian Threat: Why it has Grown and How to Fight Back
Sheldonian Theatre 10:00am Wed 2 Wednesday, 2 April 2025 See this event
Tim Lankester

Inside Thatcher’s Monetarism Experiment: The Promise, the Failure, the Legacy
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Wed 2 Wednesday, 2 April 2025 See this event
Paul Collier

Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Wed 2 Wednesday, 2 April 2025 See this event
Sheilagh Ogilvie

Controlling Contagion: Epidemics and Institutions from the Black Death to Covid
Department for Continuing Education: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Thu 3 Thursday, 3 April 2025 See this event

Festival information:

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.

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.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

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

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.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

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.