Stefan Collini

Jan 15, 2025 | lrb.co.uk | Karl Polanyi |Stefan Collini

When​ did the ‘modern’ era begin? For the European imagination across more than a millennium, the most significant divide was between antiquity and what followed, such that for some centuries ‘modern history’ was held to have begun with the fall of Rome. Applying a different filter, the category of the ‘Middle Ages’ indicated the post-Renaissance sense of an epoch between the ancient world and the ‘revival’ of learning, with the period from the late 15th century then becoming the first modern era.

Sep 2, 2024 | lrb.co.uk | Stefan Collini

Every so often​, a periodical comes along that sets the pace for a number of years thanks to the decisiveness of its editorial direction and the quality of its contributions. In 1855 the arrival of a new weekly journal represented one such transformative moment. The Saturday Review addressed itself to ‘serious, thoughtful men of all schools, classes and principles’, self-consciously distancing itself from the openly partisan character of most leading periodicals of the time.

May 29, 2024 | lrb.co.uk | Polly Toynbee |Stefan Collini

Have Britain​’s leading intellectuals all been related to one another? While the answer to the question in that bald form is clearly no, a suspicion persists that in the past 150 years a higher proportion of intellectual figures of note in this country have been interconnected by ties of blood and marriage than has been the case elsewhere.

Apr 5, 2024 | versobooks.com | Melissa Benn |Stefan Collini |Francis Mulhern

These are desperate times in the UK higher education system. Every week there are closures of degrees or departments, and sizeable redundancies. Disproportionately it is the arts, humanities and social sciences that are affected, a consequence of their downgrading in recent years. The frequency with which common-sense opinion pieces in the tabloid press have questioned (and often ridiculed) the value of the liberal education prepares the ground for so many of these cuts.

Dec 6, 2023 | lrb.co.uk | Stefan Collini

By​ 1875 the eighty-year-old Thomas Carlyle was ready to die. In fact, he was rather looking forward to death, at least officially, more than once referring to it as ‘release’. To judge by the sixty letters to his brother that Carlyle wrote (or, rather, dictated, his own hand having become too unsteady) between December 1875 and March 1879, there was much to be released from. ‘I am not worse in health than usual’ counts as a rare upbeat note.