Foreword (BAR 4)

The British Academy publishes a regular account of its activities by means of its biannual Review.

Some readers may be unfamiliar with what the Academy is and what it does. The following pages seek to give a flavour of the variety of Academy activities, which range across a broad spectrum of scholarly endeavour both within the UK and on the international stage.

First and foremost, the Academy is a Fellowship of scholars, elected for outstanding academic achievement in one or more of the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. The active participation of these Fellows enables the Academy to conduct a wide variety of activities to support academic research, to stimulate scholarly debate and to promote the role of the humanities and social sciences to a wider audience.

The activities undertaken by the Academy include the organisation of lectures and conferences, the sponsoring of major infrastructural projects that are adopted as Academy Research Projects, running a flourishing publications programme, facilitating international networks, and allocating research awards. This Review contains a section on each of the major areas of the Academy’s work. As well as material customarily to be found in a formal Annual Report, extracts from lectures and publications and specially commissioned articles are included that seek to offer an insight into the variety of academic endeavour promoted by the Academy.

This issue of the Review covers events and activities that took place during the second half of the year, from July to December 2000. This is the fourth issue of the Review, and the Academy will be pleased to receive comments and suggestions on how the content might be developed in the future.