Research interests

• British empire and decolonisation
• The Labour Party and the British left
• British feminist movements 
• British humanitarianism and overseas aid 
• The British 'culture wars', free speech and the politics of history teaching, writing and commemoration

Current research

My book, Imperial Island, explores the tangled history of the British empire at home from the Second World War to present day. It uses cultural, social and political archives to focus on the stories of 'ordinary people' and their relationship to empire and decolonisation. The book explores topics around migration, border control, policing, education, the media, sport and pop culture to examine how empire has shaped British society and the British people, and how it continues to echo through our contemporary landscape.

My edited collection, Free Speech Wars: how did we get here and why does it matter? (MUP, 2021) brought together a diverse group of writers to explore the free speech 'culture wars' in Britain and in Europe and America. The book used history, politics and philosophy to explain how free speech has become such a contemporary issue of concern and where this debate might take us.

My research more generally has focused on the history of the British Labour party, especially in relation to empire and overseas aid; the British feminist movement, especially in the context of the transnational women's movement and the IWY conferences; Rita Hinden's political thought; and sexism, harassment and abuse in academia and the aid industry.

I teach across a variety of topics in modern British social, cultural and political history, including gender history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the history and memory of the Second World War, the 1960s as a British cultural moment, and the long and tangled history of the Labour Party.

I am a feminist historian of modern British history. I am a new imperial historian in approach – I believe that Britain can only be understood as a metropole, and that British history needs to be understood as an imperial history. My book, Imperial Island: a history of empire in modern Britain, tells an alternative history of Britain's relationship with its empire from the Second World War to present day. The book traces the ways that empire and decolonisation have left their mark on British history, society, politics and culture, and tells the story of how ordinary people's lives have been shaped by the messy, complex, brutal, and surprising history of British imperialism. 

I am also committed to communicating history beyond the academy, and regularly write for popular outlets such as the Guardian, Tribune, the Washington Post, New Humanist, Popula, New Statesman, Dazed and BBC History magazine. I have appeared on podcasts (No Country for Young Women, Chatham House Undercurrents), and on television and radio (Sky News, Radio New Zealand, BBC Radio 4 Analysis, BBC Radio 4 Sweet Reason, BBC Rethink) as a historical expert.