How to Buy Your Own Country, a Lecture by Steven Press
Photo: UMass Department of History
Source: UMass Department of History
Steven Press, Associate Professor of History at Stanford University, will headline the next event in the 2026-27 Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series with a lecture titled “How to Buy Your Own Country”. The event will be held on Monday, Nov. 9, at 6 p.m. over Zoom and is free and open to all. Register HERE. A public Q & A will follow the talk and the event will be recorded.
About the Lecture
As President Trump continues to push for a “purchase” of Greenland and tech titans discuss setting up “model cities” from Argentina to California, the world map seems positioned for change—and the world order seems on the brink of collapse.
People may well wonder, “Is this legal? Is there any precedent?” A glimpse at modern history can offer some instructive notes of perspective, analogy, and caution. In particular, the cases of the East India Company and Leopold II’s Congo Free State can shed much-needed light on current events.
About the Presenter
Steven Press is an associate professor of history and an affiliated member of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for African Studies, and the Stanford Center for Law and History. Press’s first book, Rogue Empires: Contracts and Conmen in Europe’s Scramble for Africa (Harvard University Press, 2017), received the American Historical Association’s Pacific Coast Branch Book Award. His second book, Blood and Diamonds: Germany’s Imperial Ambitions in Africa (Harvard University Press, 2021), received the German Studies Association’s Barclay Book Prize and was named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. Cornell University Press published his third book, Europe’s Little Anarchy: The Rise and Fall of Neutral Moresnet, in 2026.
About the Feinberg Series
Amid escalating war, fascism, and climate destruction, the threats posed by billionaires and giant corporations have never been so stark. What are the roots of this situation, and how can we fight back?
The 2026-27 Feinberg Series explores the global history of oligarchy and resistance to it. Events will trace oligarchy’s origins in colonialism, capitalism, and racism while centering the popular movements that have fought for equity and democracy. The series brings together students, scholars, journalists, and community organizers. They will draw from history to understand corporate power, envision alternatives, and inform struggles for justice in the present.
The history department’s signature event series, the Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series is offered every other academic year thanks to the generosity of Kenneth Feinberg ’67 and associates. Each iteration of the series focuses on a “big issue” of clear and compelling concern, generally a policy or social issue. Regularly attended by thousands of people from across the world, Feinberg Series events ground the theme in historical inquiry, context, analysis and experience and featuring a wide variety of events, including lectures, exhibitions, performances, panel discussions and film.
Read more and view the schedule on the Feinberg Series website: www.umass.edu/feinberg