̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Richard Evans

CamFest Speaker Spotlight: Professor Sir Richard Evans

zs332 — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 10:28:08 +0000

Cambridge historian Professor Sir Richard Evans, a world authority on the Nazis and author of the forthcoming Hitler’s People, will be speaking at a panel event on one of the big questions of our time: How do wars end?

“Denial”: how to deal with a conspiracy theory in the era of ‘post-truth’

fpjl2 — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 12:06:12 +0000

I only have a very small part in the film Denial compared to those of David Irving (played by Timothy Spall), Richard Rampton QC (played by Tom Wilkinson), Anthony Julius (played by Andrew Scott), and Professor Deborah Lipstadt (played by Rachel Weisz), but I like to think it’s an important one. When Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin, her publishers, in the High Court for libeling him by calling him a Holocaust denier and a falsifier of history, Julius, as her solicitor, decided to defend her by proving that what she had written about Irving was true.

He asked me to go through Irving’s books, articles and speeches and address the issues at the centre of the case. With the help of two of my PhD students, who also appear in the film, I spent 18 months doing just that, and writing a 740-page report that was put before the court. We demonstrated that he was indeed a Holocaust denier, who had claimed that there was no Nazi policy of exterminating the Jews, that 6 million did not die as a result of it, that gas chambers were not used to carry it out, and that the evidence on which historians relied was forged.

Irving lost the case comprehensively. When the case was heard before the High Court in the early months of 2000, Irving was unable to shake the foundations of my report or the conclusions of several other expert witnesses who presented evidence on the gas chambers at Auschwitz, on the planning and implementation of what the Nazis euphemistically called “the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe”, and on Irving’s connections with far-right, neo-Nazi groups.

In the film, John Sessions plays me incisively and with vigor as I give my evidence from the witness box. True, he only speaks for three or four minutes, whereas in the actual trial I was cross-examined by Irving for 28 hours, spread over more than a week. But the brilliant screenplay by David Hare gets over the essential point, which is that Irving deliberately falsified the historical evidence to bring it into conformity with his prejudices, his Holocaust denial. If all the egregious errors in his historical writings had been the result of mere carelessness then their effect on his arguments would have been random. But they all went to support his denial of Hitler’s responsibility for the Holocaust, the absence of any Nazi plan, and the claim that gas chambers were not used to kill vast numbers of Jews; so therefore they could only have been the result of deliberate falsification.

Irving wanted to argue, as he did in his opening statement, that Deborah Lipstadt was part of a Jewish conspiracy to discredit him. ̽��ֱ��judge did not permit him, however, to pursue this line in his closing statement. ̽��ֱ��allegation was irrelevant to the actual subject of the trial, which was Lipstadt’s charge that Irving was a falsifier of history and a Holocaust denier. Shifting the ground of an argument from the issues to the person who has raised them is a standard tactic of conspiracy theorists. They should not be allowed to get away with it.

In the end, by substantiating the defence of truth and accuracy in Lipstadt’s defamatory allegations, it was proved by implication that these things that Irving denied actually did happen. It was a victory for historical investigation. Seventeen years later, that victory no longer seems quite so comprehensive or secure. True, Irving was discredited in the eyes of the historical profession, some of whose members had previously taken his research seriously as scholarship. He also lost access to the newspapers and the broadcast media, where he had up to that point sometimes been treated as an expert on Nazism and the Second World War.

But the case was heard before the era of social media. Facebook was founded in 2004 and Twitter two years later. ̽��ֱ��Internet and the World Wide Web were already in existence, though their use was still not very widespread. These new institutions have transformed the nature of communication, putting out vast masses of unedited, undigested, uncontrolled information and, more importantly, misinformation out into the public arena.

̽��ֱ��rapid and still largely unregulated spread of abusive ‘trolling’, the aggressive harassment of individuals through obscenities and even threats of violence and rape by social media, has introduced a new element venom into the public discourse. During and after the trial, I received a large number of abusive and obscene letters through the post from Irving’s supporters. I did not find them upsetting; they were uniformly stupid and many of them were semi-literate. I filed them away. Nobody ever saw any of them apart from those who wrote them, and myself, their recipient. But nowadays they would not be put into envelopes, they would go out there onto the Internet, via social media. This is a huge difference, and it’s degrading and defiling what should be a means of open and friendly communication, information and debate.

More importantly, however, while the trial, as it happened and as it is depicted in Denial, gave the stamp of the High Court, of the legal profession, of academic historians and political scientists, to the authenticity of the massive documentation that exists showing the Holocaust really happened, the emergence of social media and the proliferation of Holocaust-denying websites has allowed people who refuse to accept the facts to put their obnoxious opinions before the public as if they were statements of the truth.

What is at the core of Holocaust denial is of course anti-Semitism: in essence a vast and pernicious conspiracy theory that believes that there is a Jewish plot to convince the world that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis, and that the plot has only succeeded because ‘the Jews’ control the media and rule the world of academic historical research. This is of course utter nonsense, as we showed in court. Apart from anything else, Jewish communities everywhere are divided politically and socially, and the media and the newspapers are not controlled by Jews of any description acting in any kind of concert. Still less is this the case with universities and institutes of research that discover and publicize the huge mass of historical documentation now available on the Holocaust.

But all opinions are equal in the new public sphere of the Internet. And there is a new form of ‘soft’ Holocaust denial making itself heard: the suggestion that the mass murder of the Jews by the Nazis was just another genocide among many, however terrible it may have been. Anyone who has ever worked on Nazi Germany knows that this was not the case: while millions of others who were the victims of Nazism – ‘Slavs’, ‘Gypsies’, the mentally ill and handicapped, homosexuals, and others – were seen as obstacles to the rise of German power, the purity of the German race, and the implementation of German plans to colonise eastern Europe, the Jews were regarded quite differently, as the ‘world-enemy’, engaged in a global conspiracy that aimed at the destruction of the German, or as the Nazis put it, ‘Aryan’ race. They were an existential threat, so had to be killed wherever they were found. That is the reason why they were singled out by the Nazis, and even by ordinary German soldiers during the invasions of Poland and Russia in 1939 and then 1941, for specially sadistic and humiliating treatment, unlike the Nazis’ other victims.

̽��ֱ��‘Final Solution’ was thus far more than just another set of massacres. That is why we commemorate it on Holocaust Memorial Day, on 27 January. Yet when the Trump White House put out a statement on the Day, it made no mention of the Jews at all. Questioned on this, a spokesman claimed that the President wanted the Day to be ‘inclusive’. But the Nazis weren’t inclusive: it was only the Jews whom they tried to exterminate everywhere they found them, in their millions, in gas chambers, ghettoes and shooting pits. Seemingly the kind of anti-Semitism that reared its ugly head during the US election campaign, with Trump’s claim that Hillary Clinton “meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty” and that Jews “control the levers of power”, has now moved into the White House.

Hard and soft Holocaust denial are now back in business, thanks to the Internet and to social media. All we can do to counter them is to insist again and again on the facts. ̽��ֱ��release of Denial, I hope, has made and will continue to make a major contribution to the discrediting of these obnoxious and paranoid conspiracy theories.

This article was originally published by the Conspiracy & Democracy Project: a five-year, interdisciplinary research project at Cambridge aiming to provide a “natural history” of conspiracy theorising. Prof Sir Richard Evans (inset above) is a co-Director of the Project.

The new film Denial dramatises the landmark libel trial when David Irving sued the academic Deborah Lipstadt for calling him a Holocaust denier – a case Irving lost. Sir Richard Evans, Regius Professor of History and an authority on the Third Reich, was called as an expert witness in the trial. Here, Evans discusses the case and the film, the emergence of 'soft' Holocaust denial, and the statement put out by Trump's White House on this year's Holocaust Memorial Day.

There is a new form of ‘soft’ Holocaust denial making itself heard: the suggestion that the mass murder of the Jews by the Nazis was just another genocide among many, however terrible it may have been. Anyone who has ever worked on Nazi Germany knows that this was not the case

Richard Evans

Bleecker Street

Timothy Spall playing discredited historian David Irving in the film Denial.

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Elvis is alive and the Moon landings were faked: the (conspiracy) theory of everything

sjr81 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 08:14:52 +0000

Elvis is alive, the Moon landings were faked and members of the British Royal Family are shapeshifting lizards.

Not only that: 9/11 was an inside job, governments are deliberately concealing evidence of alien contact, and we are all being controlled by a sinister, shadowy cartel of political, financial and media elites who together form a New World Order.

As a global population we are awash with conspiracy theories. They have permeated every major event, across every level of society; from the French Revolution to the War on Terror. In doing so, they have attracted devotees in their millions; from lone survivalists to presidential nominees such as Donald Trump – who claimed Ted Cruz’s father had links to Lee Harvey Oswald and, by inference, to the murder of President John F. Kennedy.

But what effects do conspiracy theories really have on the public as we go about our day-to-day lives? Are they merely harmless flights of fancy propagated by those existing on the margins of society, or is their reach altogether more sinister? Do runaway conspiracy theories influence politicians, decision-makers and, by extension, the public at large? And what effect has the advent of the internet and mass, instant communication across social media platforms had on the spread of conspiracy theories around the world?

Since 2013, a team of Cambridge researchers and visiting fellows has been examining the theories and beliefs about conspiracies that have become such an enduring feature of modern society. Conspiracy and Democracy: History, Political Theory and Internet Research is a five-year, interdisciplinary research project based at CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) and funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

̽��ֱ��project brings together historians, political theorists, philosophers, anthropologists and internet engineers as it seeks to understand what additional factors must be at work for conspiracy theories to enjoy such prevalence in the 21st century.

Professor John Naughton who, along with Professor Sir Richard Evans and Professor David Runciman, is one of the three project directors, explains: “Studying conspiracy theories provides opportunities for understanding how people make sense of the world and how societies function, as well as calling into question our basic trust in democratic societies.

“Our project examines how conspiracies and conspiracy theorising have changed over the centuries and what, if any, is the relationship between them? Have conspiracy theories appeared at particular moments in history, and why?

“We wanted to counter the standard academic narrative that conspiracy theories are beneath contempt. We were anxious to undertake a natural history of theorising, to study it seriously from a 21st-century context.”

Despite the onset of the digital age, Naughton and his colleagues do not believe that the internet has necessarily increased the influence of conspiracy theories on society as a whole. Indeed, research suggests that although the spread of conspiracy theories is often instantaneous in the digital world, so too is the evidence to debunk them.

Likewise, the team’s work so far suggests that online, as in life, we largely surround ourselves with people of like-minded views and opinions, effectively partitioning ourselves from a diversity of world views.

“ ̽��ֱ��internet doesn’t make conspiracy theories more persuasive, it actually seems to compartmentalise people,” adds Naughton. “We more efficiently come into contact with those who hold similar views, but we also mostly end up working in echo chambers. That’s the way the internet works at the moment – especially in social media: you end up somewhere where everyone has the same views.

“ ̽��ֱ��effect is a more concentrated grouping of opinions, and that’s the same for everything else, not just conspiracy theories. I follow 800 people on Twitter. Not one of them celebrated Brexit. I was in an echo chamber.”

Dr Alfred Moore, a postdoctoral researcher on the project, adds: “ ̽��ֱ��question of the effect of the internet is a really interesting one. How far can the emergence and success of today’s populist movements be explained in terms of technological changes and especially social media? My first instinct is to say a little bit, but probably not much.

“Technologies have made it less costly to communicate, which means it’s easier to find, talk to and organise supporters without the financial and organisational resources of political parties. Both Corbyn and Trump make heavy use of social media as an alternative to a supposedly biased ‘mainstream’ media and the influence of their parties. It also demonstrates how the internet can promote polarisation by making it easy for people to find information they agree with and to filter out everything else.”

For those reasons, Naughton and Moore believe that some of the most famous conspiracy theories – such as David Icke’s theories about shapeshifting reptiles or feverish claims about the death of Princess Diana – are not particularly dangerous as they don’t appear to generate tangible actions or outcomes in the real world. In fact, the Conspiracy and Democracy team question whether these silos effectively disable the capacity for many conspiracy theories to take a firm hold in the public consciousness or threaten our democratic processes.

“A lot remains to be done in researching the history, structure and dynamics of conspiracy theories, their relationships with real conspiracies, and the changes they have undergone through time,” adds Evans. “You might think that conspiracy theories cause anxiety and depression among ordinary people, and undermine trust in our political institutions and the people who run them, but there are plenty of other reasons for this lack of trust apart from conspiracy theories.

“ ̽��ֱ��debate goes on, but it’s not a case of conspiracy theories threatening democracies. By themselves, such theories may reinforce political suspicion and prejudice but they’re not the origin of it. On the whole, I think it’s fair to conclude that the scale of the threat is pretty limited.

“Some varieties, like antisemitism, can cause huge damage, but others are pretty harmless. Does it really matter that some people think the moon landings were faked? In the end, few people believe we are ruled by alien lizards.”

As a global population we are awash with conspiracy theories. But what effect do these really have on the public as we go about our day-to-day lives, asks a team of Cambridge researchers.

̽��ֱ��internet doesn’t make conspiracy theories more persuasive, it actually seems to compartmentalise people

John Naughton

Sebastian Bartoschek

Moon1

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Previously un-exhibited art by 15 Royal Academicians goes on display at Wolfson College to mark the 50th anniversary

jeh98 — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:00:00 +0000

‘ ̽��ֱ��Royal Academy at Wolfson’ is an extraordinary exhibition, curated by Anthony Green RA, which includes paintings, prints, drawings and small sculptures that have been lent to the College by the artists. Many of these works have never been exhibited before and, as a group, they represent some of the finest art being produced in Britain today.

With free admission, the exhibition will be open to the public on Saturday and Sunday afternoons 2–4pm from 31 January to 19 December 2015. It will feature works by the following Royal Academicians: Ivor Abrahams, Eileen Cooper, Gus Cummins, Anthony Eyton, Peter Freeth, Paul Huxley, Timothy Hyman, Neil Jeffries, Sonia Lawson, Ben Levene, Christopher Le Brun, Chris Orr, Mick Rooney, Anthony Whishaw and Anthony Green himself.

̽��ֱ��exhibition is the first in an outstanding programme of modern and contemporary art events designed to celebrate Wolfson College’s 50th anniversary. One of the most cosmopolitan of the 31 Colleges in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Wolfson is a leading academic research institution with fellows, postgraduate students, and mature undergraduates from 80 countries around the world. Distinguished by its modernity and diversity, but also by its informality and egalitarianism, Wolfson was the first College to admit men and women as both students and fellows. Professor Sir Richard Evans FBA, Regius Professor of History until 2014 and currently Provost of Gresham College, London, is the fifth President of the College.

‘ ̽��ֱ��Royal Academy at Wolfson’ will also be accompanied by the display of a significant and unique collection of pottery made by potters who worked in the studio of the renowned Bernard Leach CBE. This collection was recently donated by collectors Dr Harry Bradshaw and Dr Norma Bubier, senior members of Wolfson College, and will feature alongside works by other notable potters, including: Richard Batterham, Clive Bowen, Amanda Brier, Alan Brough, Ray Finch, John Leach and Bill Marshall.

Admission is free via the Porter’s Lodge, Barton Road.

For further information, please contact finearts@wolfson.cam.ac.uk.

For public enquiries, please contact the Porter’s Lodge on 01223 335900 or porters@wolfson.cam.ac.uk.

Twenty-eight exceptional works by 15 Royal Academicians will be on display at Wolfson College, Cambridge throughout 2015 as part of a programme of celebrations to mark Wolfson’s 50th anniversary.

̽��ֱ��exhibition is the first in an outstanding programme of modern and contemporary art events designed to celebrate Wolfson College’s 50th anniversary.

Eileen Cooper RA

Eileen Cooper RA, Dwelling, 2009, oil on canvas

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Cambridge heads for Hay

jfp40 — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 09:20:09 +0000

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Series has been running for six years at the prestigious Festival and is part of the ̽��ֱ��’s commitment to public engagement. ̽��ֱ��Festival runs from 22nd May to 1st June and is now open for bookings.

This year's line-up includes Sir John Gurdon who was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be converted to stem cells. He will talk about his pioneering work on cloning.

Other speakers include Dr Ha-Joon Chang on economics, classicist Professor Paul Cartledge on after Thermopylae, Dame Barbara Stocking, former chief executive of Oxfam GB and president of Murray Edwards College, on the challenges for women in the workplace, Professor Chris Dobson and Dr Mary Dobson on Alzheimer's and other plagues, economist Professor Noreena Hertz on smart thinking and Professor Robert Mair on tunnelling into the future of our cities.

Professor Richard Evans, president of Wolfson College, will talk about the history of conspiracy theories, Dr John Swenson-Wright from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies will ask if North Korea is the perennial crisis state and Dr Robin Hesketh from the Department of Biochemistry will attempt to demystify cancer.

Several of the talks will take the form of a conversation: Professor Simon Blackburn will debate the uses and abuses of self love with journalist Rosie Boycott; novelist and playwright Biyi Bandele, a former Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Churchill College, will be in conversation with Dr Malachi McIntosh from the Department of English about migrant writing; Professor Henrietta Moore, William Wyse Chair of Social Anthropology, will talk about the future of civil activism with Ricken Patel, founding President of Avaaz, the world's largest online activist community; and psychologist Dr Terri Apter will debate how women follow, resist and play with the stereotypes that define them with author and alumna Zoe Strimpel.

Other Cambridge academics speaking at Hay are Professor Stefan Collini discussing higher education’s two cultures - the humanities and science - and historian Professor David Reynolds.

Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival, said: "Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� nurtures and challenges the world's greatest minds, and offers the deepest understanding of the most intractable problems and the most thrilling opportunities. And for one week a year they bring that thinking to a field in Wales and share it with everyone. That's a wonderful gift."

Nicola Buckley, head of public engagement at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Cambridge series is a wonderful way to share fascinating research from the ̽��ֱ�� with the public. ̽��ֱ��Hay Festival draws an international cross-section of people, from policy makers to prospective university students. We have found that Hay audiences are highly interested in the diversity of Cambridge speakers, and ask some great questions. We look forward to another fantastic series of speakers, with talks and debates covering so many areas of research and key ideas emerging from Cambridge, relevant to key issues faced globally today."

For tickets, go to: www.hayfestival.org

A host of Cambridge academics, including Nobel Laureate Sir John Gurdon, will be speaking on subjects ranging from stem cell technology and Alzheimer’s to the future of North Korea and the history of conspiracy theories at this year’s Hay Festival.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� nurtures and challenges the world's greatest minds, and offers the deepest understanding of the most intractable problems and the most thrilling opportunities

Peter Florence, Director of Hay Festival

Hay Festival

Night shot at Hay Festival

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Classic tales of intrigue and paranoia – coming to a cinema near you!

amb206 — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 16:00:00 +0000

Conspiracies and conspiracy theories lie at the heart of many great films. ̽��ֱ��plots of some of cinema’s most gripping narratives turn on secrets and lies, deception and collusion, revelation and exposure. Spy stories, political thrillers and horror movies are full of shadowy organisations, devious governments, criminal networks and evil masterminds in storylines skilfully crafted to tread a thin line between fact and fiction and to play with reality and imagination.

̽��ֱ��Conspiracy and Conspiracy Theory Film Season is an initiative of the Leverhulme-funded Conspiracy and Democracy research project, based at CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences), ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, in partnership with Cambridge Arts Picturehouse.

"We selected these five films because, through very different types of cinematic treatment, they expose the conspiratorial side of human relationships whether between groups or individuals,’ said Professor David Runciman, a political scientist at Cambridge and one of the project’s co-directors. "They’re great movies, too, that everyone should have a chance to see at least once, and understand more about. So we have an exciting line-up of speakers to give brief introductory talks before each film."

̽��ֱ��Manchurian Candidate (showing on Tuesday 11 February) is a political thriller based on the novel by the same name. Directed by John Frankenheimer, it was released in 1962 at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. ̽��ֱ��setting for the action is the Korean War and the narrative centres on brainwashing and assassination. Also released in the 1960s, the chilling Rosemary’s Baby (showing 18 February) directed by Roman Polanski is known as one of the all-time classics among psychological horror movies, featuring a heady mix of paranoia and satanism.

Starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford as journalists investigating the Watergate scandal, All ̽��ֱ��President’s Men (showing 25 February) proved a massive hit for the way in which it told the story of how a pair of conspiracy theorists brought down a president. A film that met with mixed reviews when it appeared in 1990, Hidden Agenda (showing on 4 March) is set in Northern Ireland and directed by Ken Loach. Through a fictional scenario, in which several characters are silenced by covert assassination, it looks at the possible role of British state terrorism during the Troubles.

̽��ֱ��series concludes with Alfred Hitchcock’s ̽��ֱ��39 Steps (showing 11 March), a thriller regarded as the best of the early films directed by the master of horror and suspense. It first hit the screens in 1935 and has been ranked by the British Film Institute as the fourth best British film of the 20^th century.

̽��ֱ��speakers who will introduce these five films include: David Trotter, King Edward VII Professor of English at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��; John Naughton, a columnist on the Observer; and Michael Newton, film writer for the Guardian.

Conspiracy and Democracy is an exciting five-year interdisciplinary project that brings together researchers from a wide range of fields to look at a phenomenon that has becoming increasingly pervasive and explore what it can tell us about how societies function in terms of trust and mistrust. ̽��ֱ��project is led by Professor Sir Richard J Evans (History), Professor John Naughton (CRASSH) and Professor David Runciman (Politics and International Studies).

All films start at 5.45pm with a 30-minute introductory talk. Standard prices and concessions apply plus student discounts of £6. Book at the Picturehouse Box Office or call 0871 902 5720.

For more information about this story contact Alexandra Buxton, Communications Office, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, amb206@admin.cam.ac.uk 01223 761673

Inset images: Rosemary's Baby, www.ronaldgrantarchive.com, Paramount Pictures; ̽��ֱ��Manchurian Candidate, www.ronaldgrantarchive.com, MC Productions.

Don’t miss the chance to see films that explore humankind’s capacity for deception. Showing at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse in February and March, each of the five movies screened as part of a Conspiracy and Conspiracy Theory Film Season will be introduced by an eminent speaker.

We selected these five films because, through very different types of cinematic treatment, they expose the conspiratorial side of human relationships whether between groups or individuals.

David Runciman

www.ronaldgrantarchive.com/Warner Bros

All the President's Men

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