William and Lois Matthews Samuel Pepys Lecture by Carla Pestana
Striving for Expertise Guest Speaker: Carla Pestana (UCLA) Scholars often refer to Samuel Pepys as an early example of a state bureaucrat, his career as a civil servant in the burgeoning Restoration bureaucracy offering documentation of an important shift in governance. Of equal note—and perhaps greater interest—is the way Pepys himself aimed for expertise. Not content to serve as a cog in a larger bureaucratic machine, Pepys sought to educate himself about the workings of the navy and of sailing ships, going beyond the demands of his own office to achieve a deeper understanding. In doing so, he once again...
