Projects of the century are about delivering futures. In this talk, we also learn of the way grand ambition calls upon histories of grandeur. Through the experiences of Turkey, Greece, and Egypt, we see how futures are engineered as a revival of civilisational glory. From Cold War dams, to belts, roads, and blockades, the talk reveals the fascinating way Projects of the Century are also engines of history, remaking and reconstructing the past to fit the geopolitical present.
Prof Tim Winter is Research Leader at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and Changjiang Scholar Chair Professor in China. Tim has led the development of heritage diplomacy as a cross-disciplinary concept and introduced geocultural power to the analysis of international affairs. Recent articles on these topics appear in Geopolitics, International Affairs, and International Journal of Cultural Policy. His most recent books are The Silk Road: Connecting Histories and Futures (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Geocultural Power: China’s Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty First Century (University of Chicago Press 2019).
