Join us for the annual Lewis Walpole Library lecture "Mr. Boswell goes to Corsica: Charismatic Authority in the Age of Democratic Revolutions", which examines how new ways of imagining political leadership emerged during the enlightenment, across the Atlantic world, using as a case study the way the Corsican independence leader Pasquale Paoli become an unexpected hero in Britain and its American colonies. He then speculates on how these ways of imagining political leadership helped shape the character of the great Atlantic revolutions of the century’s end.
The lecture will take place in the lecture hall of the Yale Center for British Art on Thursday, October 6 at 5:30 pm. It is free and open to the public and a reception will follow.
David A. Bell, the speaker, is a historian of early modern France with a particular interest in the political culture of the Old Regime and the French Revolution. He earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1991. Prior to joining Princeton's faculty in 2010, he taught at Yale University (1990-96) and at Johns Hopkins University, where he held the Andrew W. Mellon chair in the Humanities and served as dean of faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Bell is the author of five books including, most recently, Shadows of Revolution: Reflections on France, Past and Present (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is currently working on a comparative and transnational history provisionally entitled "Men on Horseback: Charismatic Authority in the Age of Democratic Revolutions." He is also a frequent contributor to general-interest publications on a variety of subjects ranging from modern warfare to the impact of digital technology on learning and scholarship.