Palais des Nations, Geneva

Geneva is an enigmatic, slightly schizophrenic city. Despite its image as a dour citadel of Calvinist rectitude, a serious place for serious people, for much of the early 20th century the city had a much racier and more sinister reputation. During the World Wars, Geneva was home to an army of spies, criminals and dodgy …

2nd Annual Advisory Board Meeting, July 2017

At the start of July we had the second meeting of our Advisory Board. Similar to our previous get together at the end of our first year, we invited our UK-based Board members to join us in Nottingham for a two-day meeting, divided into four sessions, in order to discuss the progress we had made on the grant, …

International Institute of Agriculture Archives, Rome

I recently spent ten days at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome, investigating the FAO’s forgotten precursor, the International Institute of Agriculture (IIA). The IIA was established in 1905 by David Lubin (1849-1919), a wealthy American businessman and agrarian philosopher whose name is memorialised in the FAO’s library. The IIA reflected Lubin’s …