Professor Jeremy Black says of George III (who visited Exeter in 1789 “Madness is hilarious when it occurs two centuries ago. The character of King George III — bewigged and bonkers — provides comic relief for many.” Poor George has not figured highly in British minds. His reign from 1760 to 1820 was marred by that American debacle, trouble in Ireland, war with France, the Gordon Riots, discord in parliament and an embarrassing descent into lunacy.

Professor Black has been teaching a wide range of courses at Exeter University since 1996. He has been the key lecturer for the First Year World History courses, World History-1750, and World History from 1750. He claims to have been adroit at subverting the nonsense topics of political correctness! He also did a Second-Third year course on Newspaper History, and the War MA and dissertations.  Although he found global history a tonic, he missed the national perspective.  This drove him to try to cover that in print.  He has written over ninety books all of which are available from most booksellers (Waterstones, Amazon etc).

Jeremy says he greatly enjoyed the teaching and developed a lecturing style of speaking without notes offering contrasting interpretations which he sought to drum home in lectures, seminars and tutorials. Extensive past debating experience at school and university, always extempore, helped greatly.

Due to Covid restrictions our numbers will be about a third of our usual 60 so this talk has, in fairness, to be limited to members only. We will provide a waiting list for non-members - email exeterlocalhistory@gmail.com to book a non-member place.