I am a historian of twentieth-century European political and intellectual life.

I was educated at Cambridge, Rice University, Harvard University and the École Normale Supérieure, Paris. I completed my PhD at Cambridge and my thesis was awarded the History Faculty’s Prince Consort and Thirlwall Prize, and Seeley Medal for the best dissertation across all periods.

Immediately after completing my doctorate, I took up a position as a Departmental Lecturer in Modern European History in the Faculty of History and Balliol College, Oxford. I returned to Cambridge in 2012 as a Research Fellow in French Political History at St John’s College. In 2013, I moved to the University of Edinburgh as a Chancellor’s Fellow in History. I was promoted to Reader in 2018 and served as the director of the Centre for the Study of Modern and Contemporary History from 2017 to 2020. I was made Professor of Contemporary History in 2024.

Much of my early research focused on France, in particular the transformation of French politics since the 1970s, Franco-British relations in the 20th century, and the complex legacies of colonialism. Over time, I have expanded the geographical scope of my work to think more generally about how we might imagine alternative frameworks for understanding contemporary politics. This has been the catalyst for an ongoing project on the history of identity politics and democracy.

I also have a long-standing interest in the history of the left. This led to the publication of a major intellectual biography of the historian Eric Hobsbawm in 2026. As part of this project, I built and launched the first comprehensive online Hobsbawm bibliography in 2021.

Finally, I have a significant track record of research on the politics of migration and immigration, including as part of a large collaborative project on irregular migration and state rationality in Europe from 2016 to 2018.

I have extensive international media and public engagement experience, and I am always keen to share my work and insights with others. I have also served as a review editor and editor of the journal Contemporary European History since 2017.

My other great passion is music. I hold an LRSM performing diploma on the classical guitar and, for many years, taught the instrument to unsuspecting students of all ages.