“America at 250: A View from the United Kingdom,” May 12 America 250 Concluding Lecture with Kinder Institute Senior Fellow Lawrence Goldman

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Making his return to Columbia after serving during Fall 2018 as one of the Kinder Institute’s first Distinguished Research Fellows, Lawrence Goldman will wrap up the Spring 2026 lecture series with an examination of the nation’s 250-year arc through the lens of the evolution of the United States’ special relationship with the United Kingdom. Our lone Tuesday America at 250 event, the talk will be held on May 12 in the Tiger Hotel ballroom, with Prof. Goldman’s lecture beginning at 5pm, followed by a reception. Anyone interested in attending can RSVP (recommended, but not required) using the link above.

“America from the Other Side of the Special Relationship”

This talk will offer a British perspective on the 250-year arc of American nationhood, tracing how the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States has evolved from imperial rupture to strategic alliance. It reflects on how major episodes in U.S. history—the Revolution, the Civil War, the World Wars, and the rise of American global power—have been perceived, debated, and sometimes mythologized on the British side of the Atlantic. Drawing on policy debates, popular culture, and the shifting tone of public discourse, the essay considers what British reactions to American milestones reveal not only about the United States but also about Britain’s own evolving identity. Less a scholarly treatise than a historical meditation, it will explore how the American story appears when refracted through British eyes—and how, in turn, that story has shaped Britain’s sense of itself. In doing so, it contributes to a broader Atlantic conversation on power, memory, and democratic tradition.

A Senior Fellow at the Kinder Institute and a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford’s St. Peter’s College, Lawrence Goldman spent a decade as editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and is most recently the author of Victorians and Numbers: Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain (Oxford University Press, 2022).

The Spring 2026 America at 250: Global Perspectives Lecture Series is brought to you in partnership with the State Historical Society of Missouri