Category Archives: History

W.E.B. DuBois, black liberation and liberal education for all.

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Eddie Playfair

The great African American academic, socialist, peace and civil rights activist William Edward Burghardt DuBois (1868-1963) wrote about philosophy, sociology, history, race equality and education as well as writing fiction. He is best remembered for his The Souls of Black … Continue reading →

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Jane Addams and Toynbee Hall.

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Eddie Playfair

Toynbee Hall, Commercial street, Whitechapel, 1921. Jane Addams of Chicago (aged 60) is visiting Europe. She is in conversation with a young Whitechapel schoolteacher while preparing for the arrival of four other eminent educators. If I may ask, Miss Addams, are … Continue reading →

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Hadrian, the enlightened pre-enlightenment leader?

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Marguerite Yourcenar’s wonderful novel Memoirs of Hadrian takes the form of a personal memoir written for the future Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius by the emperor Hadrian (76-138 CE) as he faces death. The book is a brilliant portrayal of a leader who … Continue reading →

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Edward Lear in Corsica

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Edward Lear (1812-1888) is probably best known for the limericks and nonsense rhymes of his Book of Nonsense (1846) but he was also an accomplished and well-travelled zoological, botanical and landscape artist. He was the twentieth of twenty-one children born into a middle-class family … Continue reading →

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Paoli in London

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

He’s been called the Che Guevara of the 18th century. He was a freedom fighter, a democrat and an intellectual. He was celebrated by Voltaire and Rousseau for producing one of the first republican constitutions of the enlightenment era; one … Continue reading →

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‘Useful work v. useless toil’ by William Morris

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

Introduction: This lecture from 1884 is a clear and powerful statement of Morris’s political and economic manifesto, which also informed ‘News from Nowhere’ (1890) his visionary fable of life after a revolution. His critique of the waste and inequality inherent in … Continue reading →

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Conrad in Corsica

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

“My task is…by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, above all, to make you see” Joseph Conrad     The writer Joseph Conrad visited Corsica with his wife Jessie … Continue reading →

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Seneca in Corsica

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

 Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca: 4 BCE – 65 C.E.) the Roman senator and philosopher, was exiled to Corsica from 41-49 AD by the emperor Claudius having been accused of adultery with Julia Livilla, one of the sisters of the … Continue reading →

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Barack Obama, community organiser

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

I was asked to speak on “Obama as a role model for young people”. To do this I think we need to understand what shaped Barack Obama. He didn’t come from nowhere. Like all of us he comes from somewhere and … Continue reading →

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