Final Oakeshott Lecture of 2026, in which Christopher Caldwell revisits his book on Europe and migration, followed by a public conversation with Steven Edginton.
Christopher Caldwell comes to The Sheldonian Theatre on Wednesday 28 October, the final Oakeshott Lecture of 2026. The series was formerly known as the Scruton Lectures, and this one brings together a lecture and a public conversation in one evening.
Caldwell is an American journalist and writer, and the night centres on his 2009 book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. He'll be revisiting it nearly two decades on, returning to the question that gave the book its title: whether Europe can remain the same with different people in it. After the lecture, he'll be joined on stage by Steven Edginton for a public conversation.
Caldwell has a long track record in political writing. Reflections is one of his better-known works, and he also wrote The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties, which hit the New York Times bestseller list in 2020. He's a contributing editor at the Claremont Review of Books, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and a member of the editorial committee of the French quarterly Commentaire. Before that, he spent years as a senior editor at the Weekly Standard and wrote as a columnist for the Financial Times.
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Edginton joins him for the second half of the evening. He's an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, and a former GB News US Correspondent who has also worked for The Telegraph and The Sun; his videos have been viewed over 100 million times on YouTube. The two will talk through the themes of the lecture in front of the audience.
It's a free event for general admission and concessions, with doors opening at 4:30pm and the lecture running from 5:00 to 6:30pm. The whole thing lasts an hour and a half with no interval, and latecomers aren't permitted, so it's worth getting there a bit early. The Sheldonian is on Broad Street, OX1 3AZ.
