203 research outputs found
The Met: a history of a museum and its people
No full textThis book is a groundbreaking bottom-up history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exploring both its triumphs and its failings. Jonathan Conlin tells the stories of the people who have shaped the museum—from curators and artists to museumgoers and security guards—and the communities that have made it their own. Highlighting inequalities of wealth, race, and gender, he exposes the hidden costs of the museum’s reliance on “robber barons” and oligarchs, the exclusionary immigration policies that influenced the foundation of the American Wing, and the obstacles faced by women curators. Drawing on extensive interviews with past and current staff, Conlin brings the story up to the present, including the museum’s troubled 150th anniversary in 2020. As the Met faces continued controversy, this book offers a timely account of the people behind an iconic institution and a compelling case for the museum’s vision of shared human creativity
Adam Smith
No full textUniversally acknowledged as the father of capitalism, the eighteenth-century Scottish thinker Adam Smith is best known for his “invisible hand” theory. This theory argued in favour of setting individuals free to pursue their self-interests for the good of all, and has helped to make Adam Smith's name synonymous with unfettered free market capitalism and a belief that “greed is good”. In this book, Jonathan Conlin rescues Smith from the straight-jacket of economics, reattaching the "invisible hand" to Smith's ethical philosophy.As Conlin shows, Smith rooted our instincts to trade in human psychology. Analyzing the contrasts he saw between the industrializing Scottish lowlands and the clan-based pastoralism of the Scottish highlands—as well as the contrasts between the ideas of contemporary thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume—Smith advanced a system of ethics founded on sympathy. Weaving together Smith’s life and ideas, Conlin shows how the latter anticipated much more recent development surrounding behavioral economics, virtue ethics, and social inequality. Ultimately, Conlin argues, Adam Smith offers us a set of tools to face today's challenges and become better and happier human being
Tales of two cities: Paris, London and the making of the modern city, 1700-1900
No full textParis and London have long held a mutual fascination, and never more so than in the period 1750-1914, when they vied to be the world's greatest city. Each city has been the focus of many books, yet Jonathan Conlin here explores the complex relationship between them for the first time.The reach and influence of both cities was such that the story of their rivalry has global implications. It is a history of surprises: Sherlock Holmes was actually French, the can-can was English and the first ever restaurant served English food in Paris. By borrowing, imitating and learning from each other Paris and London invented the modern metropolis.Tales of Two Cities examines and compares five urban spaces - the pleasure garden, the cemetery, the apartment, the restaurant and the music hall - that defined urban modernity in the nineteenth century. The citizens of Paris and London first created these essential features of the modern cityscape and so defined urban living for all of us
Civilisation
No full textA breathtakingly ambitious series that tackled over a thousand years of history, Kenneth Clark's Civilisation was the first color documentary series broadcast in the UK. Eager to show off its new second channel, the BBC had sent its finest directors and crew on an 80,000-mile odyssey in search of the finest examples of human creativity. The resulting thirteen-episode series became a milestone in television history, pioneering the "Presenter-Hero" model of authored documentary. For its fans the series gave hope for the future at a time of civil and political unrest; for its critics the series elicited only despair at its supposedly elitist values. Meanwhile, in the United States the series had an even deeper impact: a flagship for a new public broadcasting service, and the start of a new transatlantic partnership between the BBC and PBS.Forty years on Civilisation has become synonymous with the golden age of the BBC documentary series, even as many television professionals have come to deride it as patronizing and slow. Drawing on interviews with members of the original crew and extensive archival research, Jonathan Conlin goes beyond the g(u)ilt-edged caricature to reveal a series that combined healthy skepticism towards traditional ideas of progress with a genuinely inclusive approach to its audience. Special chapters contrast the British and American response to Civilisation - and consider its legacy to all those interested in putting art and history on the small scree
Evolution and the Victorians: science, culture and politics in Darwin's Britain
No full textEvolution and the Victorians provides historians with an introduction to Victorian debates on evolution. It draws heavily on the historical and theoretical work of Adrian Desmond to appeal to students of scientific history, whilst maintaining a broader approach that takes in social, political and literary history as well in what is a much-needed examination of a key topic in Victorian intellectual history. Incorporating close readings/text-boxes, illustrations and a scientific terms glossary, the book encourages students to challenge positivist views of the history of science and corrects the tendency among those writing on 'evolutionary allusions' or 'echoes' in Victorian politics, literature and history to see the relationship between science and other areas of national life as a one-way story of 'diffusion'. Jonathan Conlin skilfully synthesises material from a range of sources to show the many ways in which the discovery of evolution was a collaborative enterprise pursued in all areas of Victorian society, including many that do not at first appear 'scientific'
Adventurer, saint, celebrity: the Chevalière Deon's transgender selves
No full textNo other trans individual has left us as large a corpus of autobiographical writings as the French diplomat, spy and author the Chevalière Deon (1728-1810), who narrated her transition using a variety of genres: confession, sermon, epistolary exchange, dialogue and memoir. Unfortunately these writings have only recently begun to be studied by historians, and the vast majority remain unpublished. This essay explores how Deon has been represented by clinicians and historians, before exploring her presentation as adventurer, saint, and celebrity. It argues that rather than sifting Deon's archive for a single, enduring, ‘authentic self’, Deon can help us approach trans lives in less restrictive ways
Mr five per cent: the many lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, the world's richest man
No full textAt his death in 1955 Calouste Gulbenkian was one of the richest men in the world, known as "Mr Five Percent" on account of his personal holding of 5% of Middle East oil production. His fortune and art collection are now held by the Gulbenkian Foundation, one of the world's wealthiest philanthropies. The companies he helped to create - Royal Dutch-Shell and Total - count among today's oil "supermajors," and the international oil agreements he brokered continue to shape the economic and political fortunes of Iraq, Venezuela and other oil-producing countries across the globe. Gulbenkian's media-shy persona and preference for back-room deals lent him an aura of mystery which continues to this day. Though acknowledged as one of the heroes of the international story of oil by historians such as Daniel Yergin (author of "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power"), Gulbenkian's story has yet to be told
A lire sur Tales of Two Cities, by Jonathan Conlin
No full textTales of Two Cities, by Jonathan Conlin - review Tobias Grey 15 June 2013 The figure of the flâneur, captured by Degas in ‘Place de la Concorde’, had its origin in Mr Spectator Tales of Two Cities: Paris, London and the Birth of the Modern CityJonathan Conlin Atlantic Books, pp.320, £25, ISBN: 9781848870260 In Jonathan Conlin’s Tales of Two Cities the little acknowledged but hugely significant histoire croisée of two rival metropoles gets a long overdue airing. For, like it or not, London ..
Philanthropy Without Borders: Calouste Gulbenkian’s Founding Vision for the Gulbenkian Foundation
No full textEstablished on his death in 1955, the Armenian oil magnate Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian’s eponymous foundation enjoys a high profile in the cultural life of Lisbon and the country as a whole. Gulbenkian’s correspondence as well as that which passed among Cyril Radcliffe, José Azeredo de Perdigão and others involved in helping plan and then establish the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation indicates that the parameters of the latter’s activities were much fought over in its early years. The course set by the Foundation under Salazar’s dictatorship does not reflect the benefactor’s original intentions, which anticipated more recent models of charitable giving in their scope and dynamism
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