Tuesday, 25 June 2024

Valedictory lecture from Professor Simon Szreter

News

Professor of History & Public Policy delivers retirement lecture to conclude four decade-career in Cambridge

Professor Simon Szreter will retire this summer after an immense 40-year-long career at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge. Employed as Assistant Lecturer in 1984, he was soon promoted to the position of Lecturer and later Reader. He has, since 2010, been the Faculty’s Professor of History and Public Policy. 

Earlier this month, Professor Szreter delivered a sold-out valedictory lecture to mark this extraordinary career as a Cambridge historian. His title, ‘Born into the Turbulent Flow of History’ speaks to the early influences of his life – “trying to learn to swim in the fast-flowing river of the late 1950s and early 1960s” – that compelled him to become an historian. “How could I not be fascinated by history with such evidence of its emotional and wider social and political importance before my eyes?”

“One of Simon’s great achievements in his post here in Cambridge”, said Professor Martin Daunton, Emeritus Professor of Economic History, during his introduction, “[is] linking history with public policy”. Professor Szreter was, in 2002, one of the co-founders of ‘History & Policy’: a non-profit network committed to promoting better public policy through a greater understanding of history.

 
During this lecture, Szreter argued that historians have a duty to share their expertise with policymakers:
“The conviction that has animated my career”, he said, “is the view that fully trained, rational and sceptical historians, skilled in weighing evidence of all different kinds, must as a civic duty engage with public policy as well as with education in the broad sense”.

Watch the full lecture on the Faculty of History YouTube channel.