Why Britain is in Europe The Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12239278 |
|---|---|
| Authors | T Garton Ash (University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 451-463 |
| Publication date | 2006-09-14 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Twentieth Century British History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0955-2359 • E-ISSN: 1477-4674 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/tcbh/hwl004 |
| OpenAlex | W2111663743 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
It is a real pleasure and a real honour to deliver the inaugural Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture, and to do so in the presence of his widow Jean. Ben Pimlott was a towering figure in British intellectual life, starting with the fact that physically he towered over most of us, looming up and peering quizzically down at us. He was what is now called a public intellectual, of the first order. He was unafraid to cross the frontiers between academic life and journalism or public debate. His commentaries were of great wisdom and perceptiveness. He was political editor of the New Statesman whilst at the same time being an academic. He wrote vividly about the Portuguese Revolution of the Carnations, an experience which I think always stayed with him. But he was also a very distinguished scholar of contemporary history: above all, in his great political biographies, which also have a lot to say about today's subject, Britain in Europe. For example, Pimlott charts Harold Wilson's meanderings around the issue, and quotes at one point Richard Crossman reporting Wilson's ‘completely impartial summing up against the Common Market’. His life of Hugh Dalton reminds us that Dalton had been the British representative on something called the Committee for the Study of European Unity, in Paris in 1948. This eventually led not to the EEC but to the Council of Europe. Ben Pimlott quotes a report in a British newspaper that Hugh Dalton had been chosen to ‘state the British case of go slow’. Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose
Art history · Honour · Journalism · Media studies · Newspaper · Order (exchange · Pleasure · Political science · Politics · Prestige · Sociology · State (computer science · Scottish History and National Identity · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2006 - 2010 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |