21 - 27 June 2027 - Broad Chalke, Salisbury

Festival

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Enjoy Chalke year-round by joining the Chalke History Club, with access to past talks, exclusive online events and festival benefits. (2026 talks added in the autumn)

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Guildhall

Included

17:30 - 18:30
Wed, 24 June
31. The Visionaries
Guildhall
The post-war world wasn’t an accident – it was designed. So what happens when we forget the lesson?
Although the Second World War was still a long way from being won, even by early 1941, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was already planning for peace. America’s entry into the war may still have been almost a year away, but he could already see the new world order that needed to emerge from the smouldering ashes of Europe. Three years later, the Marshall Plan would emerge, a forward-thinking combination of global philanthropy and canny self-interest, which kickstarted unprecedented European growth and a chance for the world as a whole to rebuild after the ruinous catastrophe of war.
From the world on the eve of war in 1914 through to the Versailles Treaty, to the Great Depression and the political earthquakes that followed, James Holland takes a broad sweep of history with important lessons for today. It’s a reminder that while history does not repeat itself, patterns of human behaviour certainly do.

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