recent
Writing
“British History and the Fate of National Historiographies,” Modern British History 35:1 (2024): 18-21.
On David Holland, “Toffee Men, Travelling Drapers and Black-Market Perfumers—South Asian Networks of Petty Trade in Early Twentieth Century Britain,” for Modern British History 35:1 (2024): 109-111.
Award
NYU has awarded a Teaching Innovation Award to this low-tech approach to assessing learning in large humanities classes.
Review of Thatcher’s Progress
Lee Shostak, past Chair of Britain’s Town and Country Planning Association, writes in Town and Country Planning that, “as we prepare for a Labour government, this book will help to rebuild our confidence in British town and country planning.”
Public writing
“The Queen is dead. England is not.” On the state-of-the-nation upon the Queen’s death for the Washington Post. This piece got picked up in a number of places, from the Bangladesh Post to Stars and Stripes.
“Yet despite the tried-and-true Tory tactic of sacrificing wounded leaders to reset their public standing, this time could be different.” On Boris Johnson’s resignation for the Washington Post.
Prize
The Urban History Association named Thatcher’s Progress the Best Book in Non-North American Urban History.
Book chapter
“Begrudging Neoliberalism: Housing and the Fate of the Property-Owning Social Democracy,” in The Neoliberal Age? Politics, Economy, Society, and Culture in Twentieth Century Britain, eds. Aled Davies, Ben Jackson, and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite (University College London Press, 2021), 319-335.
Reviews
Peter Stansky, Twenty Year On: Views and Reviews of Modern Britain, for Cercles.
Richard J. Williams, Why Cities Look the Way They Do, for Urban History.
Stefan Collini, The Nostalgic Imagination: History in English Criticism, for Cercles.
Interview
A conversation about housing, community, and social democracy with Alex Campsie of Renewal.
Unpublished paper
“Welfare State Modernism and the Politics of Aesthetic Change,” a standalone version of Chapter 3 of Thatcher’s Progress.
In memoriam
On T. W. Heyck (1938-2014), Professor of History, Northwestern University.