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Podcast: New Books in Western European Studies
Episode: Richard Davenport-Hines, "History in the House: Some Remarkable Dons and the Teaching of Politics, Character and Statecraft" (William Collins, 2024)
Description: Five hundred years ago, Thomas Wolsey endowed in Oxford a foundation he called Cardinal's College. Henry VIII, the monarch who dismissed and ruined him, re-established it as Christ Church later in his reign as an institution rich, spacious and imposing beyond any other.It would help young men of Tudor England and beyond to study history, improve their minds, enlarge imaginations and broaden experience for the benefit of the realm - under the tutelage, of course, of some remarkable dons.Generations of students had their intellects and world perspectives shaped by Oxford. It was believed...