2026 Emden Lecture delivered by Professor Jeremy Adelman

On Friday 13 February, St Edmund Hall was delighted to welcome Professor Jeremy Adelman, the Henry Charles Lea Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University and the Director of the Global History Lab at the University of Cambridge, to deliver this year’s A B Emden Lecture.

Jeremy’s well-received lecture, “Depending on Strangers: Love, Fear, and the Making of the Modern World”, examined how distant peoples have historically relied on one another without personal connection, tracing ideas from Adam Smith through the heated debates over globalisation since the 1970s and drawing lessons from the past to inform contemporary discussions. Adelman’s talk placed modern interdependence in a broad historical context, illuminating the opportunities and dangers inherent in global relationships. The lecture offered fresh perspectives on how fear and cooperation between strangers have shaped the modern world.

His works cover Latin American and global history, including Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of Humankind from Origins to the Present (W W Norton, 8th edition 2026) and the forthcoming The Capitalist Age: Making and Unmaking of the Global Mind (Princeton University Press, late spring 2026).

The lecture is part of an annual series in memory of A B Emden, a distinguished medievalist and historian of universities who was Principal of the Hall from 1929 to 1951. Established in 1992, the Emden Lecture attracts eminent historians from around the UK and beyond to speak on topics of particular contemporary relevance to a non-specialist audience.

Catch up on the lecture via the Hall’s YouTube channel and view our photo gallery.