What we’re about
Welcome to the London History cafe!
This is a group for people who love history and love talking about it with others.
The format is simple: each event will have a topic (e.g the bombing of London in ww2) and some light reading/listening/watching materials (e.g a podcast episode, a chapter from a book…)
We’ll me up in a quiet pub and participants will have a chance to express what they find interesting about the topic, leading a Freeform discussion.
Upcoming events (1)
See all- The Unification of Italy - History Cafe #6The White Swan, London
Hello!
For the next session we are leaving the US (for now! the Mormons are waiting for us) and moving to Italy.
- We can examine the heroic figure of Garibaldi and his exploits in Sicily
- We can compare life under Imperialistic control (Austrian and French) to life in unified Italy. were the empires really that bad?
- we can debate to what extent the people of the peninsula really were "Italian"
- We can explore the role of the British Empire (they always stick their nose in things, don't they?)
- We can draw lines from the unification to the rise of fascism
- and more and more
Sources:
Sadly we don't have "The Rest Is History" this time. Please share more resources! It would also be nice if someone with access to a printer could print a few copies of the timeline of events (*ahem ahem looking at you Ellie)The following are short Podcasts on the topic:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rOxXcbyoYO6Z3MlVT7fxw?si=74cc11359fab4f49&nd=1&dlsi=7cd1514793804545
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4jXWHXku4zNxcqMYbQkXPd?si=e759c49557df41e3&nd=1&dlsi=b56b501e08354fce
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This 120 pages book gives a thorough survey of the historiographic discussion over the unification, it's causes and effects:
The Empress on Netflix gives a (soapy) feel of what the Austro-Hungarian Empire was like at the time.
The Leopard is supposed to be a good novel about Sicily at that time (I haven't read it yet).
I also created a WhatsApp group so it will be easier to coordinate and discuss future topics:
https://chat.whatsapp.com/KsdpbuIAOsfG2hFYYnS9Aj
(joining requires approval, I'll only allow in people who've been in the events in the past, so that we don't get random joiners and spammers)
