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- Professor of Early Modern British History
- Dept of History
- Faculty of S&HS
I
studied at the universities of Lancaster, York and Cambridge (where I completed
my PhD in 1994), before moving to London to become a research fellow at the
History of Parliament Trust. I joined UCL as a lecturer in 2006, and became a
senior lecturer in 2009, and I am also a fellow of the Royal Historical
Society. My publications include two monographs: Politicians and Pamphleteers: Propaganda during the English Civil Wars
and Interregnum (2004), and Print and
Public Politics in the English Revolution (2013). I have also edited (or
co-edited) the following collections: The
Regicides and the Execution of Charles I (2001), Parliament at Work (with Chris R. Kyle, 2002), and The Print Culture of Parliament, 1600-1800
(2007). Beyond this, I serve on the editorial boards of History Compass,
Media History, and Parliamentary History, for the latter of which I
also serve as a book reviews editor. I am also one of the editors of a
monograph series for Manchester University Press, entitled ‘Politics, Culture
and Society in Early Modern Britain’.


My research focuses on the politics and political
culture of early modern Britain, and I am particularly interested in the
relationship between print culture and the practices of political life. I am
interested, therefore, in the censorship and exploitation of the press by the
political elite, in the mechanisms that were devised for the production and
deployment of propaganda, and in the issue of ‘news management’ following the
emergence of early newspapers. I am also interested in enhancing our
understanding of the ways in which contemporaries experienced the early modern ‘information
revolution’. This involves assessing how members of the public from all walks
of life reacted to propaganda and newspapers as readers and consumers, and how
they appropriated a variety of print genres in order to participate in national
political life. Beyond this, I am also interested in exploring the European
dimension print culture and public opinion in the early modern period, and in
the impact of the ways in which texts and ideas – as well as news – could traverse
political boundaries. This means examining the emergence of what might be
called a European public sphere, new ways of mobilising opinion beyond national
borders, and a growing sense among political elites of the need to manipulate
news and political debate on a much larger scale, and in different geographical
locations, not least through diplomatic channels.
My teaching involves a range of courses relating to
Early Modern British History. At undergraduate level, I run a broad course
entitled ‘Tudor and Stuart Britain, 1500-1700’, which introduces students to
the period’s turbulent political and religious history, as well as broader
developments in society, economy and culture. I also teach a course entitled ‘The
Political City: London in the Seventeenth Century’, a thematic course entitled ‘Popular
Politics in Early Modern Britain’, and a final year ‘special subject’ course on
‘The British Civil Wars and Interregnum, 1637-1660’. In addition, I teach an MA
module entitled ‘The Public Sphere in Britain, 1476-1776’. I have also devised
a compulsory second-year course entitled ‘Evolving History’, which introduces
students to the history of History since ancient times. In terms of research
supervision, I am interested in overseeing topics relating to the early modern
period of British History, especially those concerning political history and
political culture. I have a particular interest in parliamentary history,
popular politics, print culture, and the history of communication, including
the history of journalism, reading and the ‘reception’ of texts.
1994 | PhD | Doctor of Philosophy – History | University of Cambridge |