“Europe’s New Postwar Era: After the War in Ukraine,” 11/14 Kansas City Alumni Lecture with Oxford’s Martin Conway

The Kinder Institute Lecture Series will travel west to Kansas City on November 14, where Oxford (Balliol College) Professor of Contemporary European History Martin Conway will deliver our Fall 2022 Alumni Lecture, presenting on how the attempts to build durable peace in 1918, 1945, and 1989 might inform how European leaders reckon with the aftershocks of Russia’s waging war on Ukraine. Free and open to the public, a reception will precede the talk, starting at 5pm, with the lecture to follow at 6pm. We encourage anyone interested in attending to RSVP using this link.

Abstract

Europe is confronting the first post-war era of the twenty-first century. We have of course been here before: after 1918, 1945, and 1989, as well as the various wars of decolonisation, European rulers attempted to turn war into a durable peace. What are the lessons of these past episodes for the challenges of today? In particular, how far do the established structures of European co-operation—notably NATO and the EU—provide a reliable basis for encouraging co-operation, and building peace.

Martin Conway received his MA and DPhil from Oxford where he is currently a Professor of Contemporary European History and the MacLellan-Warburg Fellow and Tutor in History at Balliol College. His research focuses on European history from the 1930s forward, with recent emphasis on the history of Democracy in 20th-century Europe. He is the author of Collaboration in Belgium: Léon Degrelle and the Rexist Movement 1940-44 (Yale University Press, 1993); The Sorrows of Belgium: Liberation and Political Reconstruction 1944-47 (Oxford University Press, 2012); Europe’s Postwar Periods: 1989, 1945, 1918 (Bloomsbury, 2018); and Western Europe’s Democratic Age 1945-1968 (Princeton University Press, 2020). He is co-editor of the Cambridge University Press series, European Histories of the Present, and a more detailed account of his research interests and current projects can be found here.