Enjoy the Chalke History Festival all year round with a series of live online talks,
which you can watch from the comfort of your own home.
You can purchase tickets separately for each talk or become a member of the Chalke History Club to have access to all online talks and much more!
Upcoming Talks
Past Talks
2 December, 7pm – 8pm
Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World with Anne Applebaum
In the 20th century most autocrats were brutal dictators whose main goal was to control a domestic population. But in the 21st century autocracy has become much more sophisticated and ambitious in its scope. Having reported on different forms of authoritarian power over the past three decades, from the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe to the threat of 21st-century disinformation, Pulitzer-Prize winning author Anne Applebaum is a leading authority on autocracy. Join Anne Applebaum, in conversation with Ali Ansari, for an alarming account of the rise of the autocrats, how they work together to undermine the democratic world, and how we should organise to defeat them.
The conversation will be followed by a live Q & A.
The talk is free for members. £5 for non-members.
Speakers:
Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum is a historian and journalist. She is a staff writer for the Atlantic as well as a Senior Fellow at the Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of several history books, including Gulag: A History, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction; Iron Curtain, Red Famine and the bestselling Twilight of Democracy. Anne has been writing about Eastern Europe and Russia since 1989, when she covered the collapse of communism in Poland for the Economist magazine. She has also covered US, UK and European politics for a wide range of American and British publications. She is a former Washington Post columnist and a former deputy editor of the Spectator magazine.
Ali Ansari
Ali M Ansari is Professor of Iranian History and Founding Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews; Senior Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2018 he was elected Hon Vice President of the British Institute for Persian Studies, and re-elected President of BIPS in 2023. In 2020 he was awarded a two-year Knowledge Exchange Fellowship at the FCDO. His publications include These Islands: A Letter to Britain, The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran; Confronting Iran: the failure of US policy and the roots of mistrust. His latest book is a short history of Iran for Polity Press, published in 2024.
When: 2 December, 7pm – 8pm
Where: The 40 minute talk will be hosted online, with the opportunity for Q&A after. Ticket holders will be sent a link when they purchase their ticket, to watch the live talk online.
Price: Individual talk tickets are £5. Chalke History Club memberships start from £5 per month.
To join the Chalke History Club, to enjoy this talk for FREE and many more benefits, please click here.
14 November, 7pm – 8pm
Winston Churchill: 150th Anniversary, with Andrew Roberts
Winston Churchill towers over twentieth-century British history. By the time of his death at the age of 90 in 1965, many thought him to be the greatest man in the world. Today, his reputation is more controversial. In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Churchill’s birth on 30 November, his biographer Andrew Roberts in conversation with Peter Caddick-Adams, will discuss Churchill, his life, his virtues and his faults to provide an intimate portrait of this fascinating yet complex figure. With information drawn from over forty new sources, including the private diaries of King George VI, used in no previous Churchill biography, be prepared for a totally unique event.
To mark Churchill’s 150th anniversary, a signed and numbered limited edition of Andrew Roberts’s acclaimed biography, Churchill: Walking With Destiny, can be purchased.
The conversation will be followed by a live Q & A.
The talk is free for members. £5 for non-members.
Speakers:
Andrew Roberts
Andrew Roberts is a biographer and historian of international renown whose books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (winner of the Wolfson Prize for History), Masters and Commanders (winner of the Emery Reves Award), The Storm of War (winner of the British Army Book Prize), Napoleon the Great (winner of the Grand Prix of the Fondation Napoléon and the Los Angeles Times Biography Prize), and George III (winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography). Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, and a Trustee of the International Churchill Society. He is currently Visiting Professor at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, and the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is www.andrew-roberts.net.
Peter Caddick-Adams
Peter Caddick-Adams is a writer and broadcaster who specialises in military history, defence and security issues. He previously lectured in Military and Security Studies at the UK Defence Academy for twenty years, and in Air Power for the Royal Air Force. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Geographical Society, he also spent thirty-five years as an officer in the UK Regular and Reserve Forces, and has extensive experience of various war zones, including the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. His books include Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives, Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell, Snow and Steel: Battle of the Bulge 1944-5, Sand and Steel: A New History of D-Day and 1945: Victory in the West.
When: 14 November, 7pm – 8pm
Where: The 40 minute talk will be hosted online, with the opportunity for Q&A after. Ticket holders will be sent a link when they purchase their ticket, to watch the live talk online.
Price: Individual talk tickets are £5. Chalke History Club memberships start from £5 per month.
To join the Chalke History Club, to enjoy this talk for FREE and many more benefits, please click the link below.
Jim Webb: An Insider’s View of America in the 20th and 21st Centuries
For the first of our Chalke online events, we are extraordinarily fortunate to welcome former senator Jim Webb, who has been a combat Marine, a counsel in the Congress, an assistant secretary of defense and Secretary of the Navy and is a highly regarded national security and foreign policy specialist. In conversation with James Holland, Jim will discuss his life at the heart of American politics, giving an unparalleled insight into America today and how November’s historic election could impact the United States and its future role in the world.
The conversation will be followed by a live Q & A. Free for members. £5 for non-members.
Speakers:
Jim Webb
Jim Webb is a decorated Vietnam Marine combat veteran who has served as the US Secretary of the Navy and Assistant Secretary for Defense for Reserve Affairs. While in the Senate, he served on several committees, notably the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services and wrote, introduced, and guided to passage the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the most significant veterans legislation since World War II. Webb’s leadership and public service have been recognized with more than 30 national awards. Webb is also an Emmy Award-winning journalist, best-selling author of ten books and writer and executive producer of the movie, Rules of Engagement. He is the inaugural distinguished fellow at Notre Dame International Security Center.
James Holland
James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer, and broadcaster. He has presented – and written – many television programmes and series for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, History and Discovery Channels. He is also co-founder of the Chalke History Festival and presents the much-loved Second World War podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, alongside Al Murray.
When: 1st October, 7pm – 8pm
Where: The 40 minute talk will be hosted online, with the opportunity for Q&A after. Ticket holders will be sent a link in advance of the talk, to watch the live talk online.
Price: Individual talk tickets are £5. Chalke History Club memberships start from £5 per month.
To join the Chalke History Club, to enjoy this talk for FREE and many more benefits, please click here.
