Rothermere American Institute

15/10/2026

Welcome to a new term at Oxford University’s Rothermere American Institute!

Here at the RAI, we research all kinds of questions about the United States and its place in the world. Why don’t Americans like “soccer”? Is the American frontier a myth? Can we still learn new things from original Constitutional documents?

We are an interdisciplinary institute made up of undergraduates, postgraduates, professors, visiting fellows, and researchers. We have our own podcast, led by our director Professor Adam Smith, which deep dives into American questions with experts on literature, history, and politics. And, like a lot of Oxford institutions, we have our very own furry mascot… (more to come on that 🐾)

Follow along for all things RAI and to keep up with what’s going on this term and beyond 🇺🇸

07/10/2026

The Last Best Hope podcast is returning, and for the next year or so we’re going to release episodes fortnightly, every two weeks.

This is the podcast that explores history to understand what makes America what it is, and in the eyes of many people around the world, the last best hope of Earth.

In the run-up to the mid-term elections, which may once again shift the political trajectory of America, we try to explain the paradox of a nation riven by partisanship but with such weak political parties. And we take the long view of midterm elections, going back as far as 1874, a contest in which the Republicans lost half their House seats. Why do these midterm contests so reliably go against the President’s party?

And 80 years after Winston Churchill delivered his famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he used the phrase special relationship, we explore how that phrase has distorted British perceptions of the US.

And we take a deep dive into the surprising history of the Supreme Court as a highly political body. Just some of the episodes coming up on The Last Best Hope from Oxford University’s Rothermere American Institute with me, . Make sure you follow us so that you don’t miss an episode.

01/07/2026

To mark the Rothermere American Institute’s 25th anniversary, members of the RAI community, past and present, reflect on what this unique research institute means to them. Watch full video at the link in our bio!

24/06/2026

New episode of the Last Best Hope? out today! To discuss whether there is any chance of a consensual 250th celebration in such a polarised environment, Adam is joined by James Morone, the John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Brown University and a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He’s the author, among other books, of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History. And by Frank Cogliano, Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh. His most recent book, A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson and the American Republic, came out last year. He is also editor of a new collection, The American Revolution at 250: Twenty-Four Historians Reflect on the Founding, published this spring.

23/06/2026

Last week the RAI celebrated its 25th anniversary. The festivities included ice cream cake, y2k fancy dress, and the annual co****le tournament. But it was mainly a chance to gather past and present members of the RAI community together to celebrate them, because they are what make this place so special.

The world has changed a lot since the building was first opened in May 2001. But the mission has always been the same: to understand America’s history, culture and politics, always recognising, as President Clinton did during the speech he gave at the opening ceremony in 2001, the “inescapable web of mutuality” connecting the US to the rest of the world.

Special shoutout to Emily Rose competitive face in the last slide.

09/06/2026

Is there anything more distinctively American than its sports culture? As the 2026 World Cup kicks off in the US Adam asks why a sport that took over the world has been so marginal for so long in America – and wonders if that’s finally changing. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a form of football that had begun in English public schools became a global phenomenon, played almost everywhere except in the United States.

Guests on this episode: Frank Guridy, Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies and Professor of History at Columbia and Uta Balbier, Professor of US History at Oxford.

27/05/2026

In this episode, Adam explores an alternative legacy of 1776. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence launched the United States. It also licensed the greatest-ever effort to break it up. In conversation with Caroline E. Janney of the University of Virginia and Robert Hancock, Senior Curator at the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Adam discusses how the Confederacy built a national identity in four short years out of the material the Founding had left lying around: the flags, the seals, the songs, the textbooks, the sermons, the fast days and the inaugurations. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. podcast

13/05/2026

16/02/2026

Join us tomorrow to hear from Professor Emily Zackin (Johns Hopkins University) give the annual Winant Lecture in American Government. This years lecture is titled: States and American Constitutional Development

17 February 17:00- all welcome!
Rothermere American Institute, 1a South Parks Road, OX1 3UB
Details at the link in our bio.