I am Senior Lecturer in History and War Studies, specialising in conflict, combat, and civil-military relations since the early modern period, with an especial focus on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I joined York St John University in 2014, having completed my PhD at the University of York with a thesis examining policy and public opinion in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
My publications include 'War, Public Opinion and Policy in Britain, France and the Netherlands, 1785 to 1815' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 'Battle: Understanding Conflict from Hastings to Helmand' (Pen and Sword, 2022), and a number of articles in internationally recognised journals. In 2022 I was awarded the British Commission for Military History's Sir Michael Howard prize.
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
My teaching focuses primarily on Britain and Europe from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Current modules include:
- War and Society
- European Revolutions
- The Face of Battle
- A United Kingdom? Britain 1707 to 1837
- European History, 1750 to 1850 (The Napoleonic Wars)
- Britain at War, c.1800 to 1815
My primary research interests lie in Europe of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. My PhD thesis looked at the interaction of public opinion and foreign policy in Britain, France, and the Netherlands during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire, and I have an interest in questions of power, political culture, and diplomatic relations in the 1700s and 1800s. I also have an interest in civil-military relations since the early modern period, and have published on military conscription in apartheid South Africa and Napoleonic France. I am currently researching experiences of conflict and warfare in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with a focus on the period of the Napoleonic Wars.
I would welcome enquiries from anyone interested in postgraduate research in conflict, diplomacy and the experience of war in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially in the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Recent publications
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
I am currently co-convening editor of 'Battalia', the online journal of the Battlefields Trust, and co-chair of the Yorkshire region.
