History Speaker Biographies

Dr Helen Castor

Dr Helen Castor is a historian of medieval England, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. She taught at Cambridge University for nine years before deciding to concentrate on writing history for a wider readership. Her book Blood & Roses (Faber, 2004) is a biography of the fifteenth-century Paston family, whose remarkable letters are the earliest surviving collection of private correspondence in the English language. Blood & Roses was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2005, and was awarded the Beatrice White Prize (for outstandingly scholarly work in the field of English Literature before 1590) by the English Association in 2006. Her next book, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, will be published in 2009.

Professor Chris Clark

Professor Chris Clark is a professor of modern European History at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Director of Studies at St Catherine’s College. He teaches modern European history (1715 - the present) and lectures on the Third Reich. His research interests are centred on the history of nineteenth-century Germany and continental Europe. In 2004 he co-edited, with Wolfram Kaiser of the University of Portsmouth, an edited volume about the 'culture war' between Catholic and secular social forces that polarised so many European states in the years 1850-1890. He has also published a study of Kaiser Wilhelm II (2000) for the Longmans/Pearson series Profiles in Power. He is currently working on a study of political change across Europe in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions.

Ian Dawson

Ian Dawson has been Director and Publications Director of the Schools History Project, has written over 80 books for schools and is currently editing Hodder Education’s new KS3 series. He was lead author of QCA's guidance on chronological understanding and for many years has run CPD courses for teachers, focusing on active learning methods which make school history both more enjoyable and challenging and promote higher standards of knowledge and understanding. In 2003 he was chosen as one of the ‘twenty best university teachers’ in the UK for his work combining running the PGCE History course at Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds and teaching a final year Special Subject on the Wars of the Roses, where he made extensive use of active ‘school teaching techniques’ at degree level. The award funded the development of the website www.thinkinghistory.co.uk which supports the development of kinaesthetic teaching techniques amongst trainee teachers and newly qualified staff.

Richard Fisher

Richard Fisher read History at Balliol College, Oxford and did 3 days of a DPhil on protoindustrialisation in the West of England. For many years he worked as a commissioning editor in history and politics at Cambridge University Press, and is now Executive Director of Academic Publishing at Cambridge, responsible for academic books in all subject areas. He is a Fellow and Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society, and chairs the Publications Committee of the RHS. He is also Associate Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (responsible for Golf and Golfers), and has published in periodicals as diverse as the New Musical Express, the Times Higher Education Supplement, and History Workshop Journal. He has served on several committees of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and advises the British Academy and other public bodies on disseminational matters.

Dr Tim Harper

Dr Tim Harper is Reader in Southeast Asian and Imperial History at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Magdalene College. He is the author of The end of empire and the making of Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 1999) and, with Christopher Bayly, Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian empire and the war with Japan (Penguin, 2004) and Forgotten Wars: the end of Britain’s Asian empire (Penguin, 2007).

Dr Max Jones

Dr Max Jones was educated at Oxford, Cambridge and U.C. Berkeley and now teaches History at the University of Manchester. Max’s first book, The Last Great Quest (Oxford, 2003), analysed why Britons celebrated the death of the polar explorer Captain Scott in 1912, exposing the popular appeal of ideas of comradeship and sacrifice on the eve of the Great War. His new edition of Scott’s last Journals: Captain Scott’s Last Expedition was published in the Oxford World’s Classics Series in 2006. His latest research project examines changing attitudes to national heroes over the last two centuries, with a particular focus on General Gordon of Khartoum. Max has pioneered the use of new eLearning technologies at Manchester, and was awarded the University’s Stopes Medal as ‘Teacher of the Year’ in June 2008.

Dr Jonathan Parry

Dr Jonathan Parry is Reader in Modern British History at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Director of Studies in History at Pembroke College. He is the author of three books on Victorian Liberalism and the Liberal party, most recently 'The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, national identity and Europe, 1830-1886' (Cambridge, 2006). He has also written a short biography of Benjamin Disraeli (Oxford, 2007).

Dr Amanda Power

Dr Amanda Power was an undergraduate at the University of Sydney (Australia) and gained her PhD from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 2002. She was a research fellow for the European Commission research project: 'Kultur, Mobilität, Migration und Siedlung von Juden im mittelalterlichen Europa' (2001-2002) and held a research fellowship at Magdalene College, Cambridge (2002-2005). She became a lecturer in medieval history at the University of Sheffield in September 2005. Her research has concerned the thought of the thirteenth-century scientist, Roger Bacon, looking particularly at his views on developments within the Franciscan order and of Latin Christian relations with the rest of the world. She teaches courses on holy war in the medieval Mediterranean, the Muslim conquest of Spain and a Special Subject on Muslims, Mongols and the West.

Dr Michael Riley

Dr Michael Riley is Director of the Schools History Project. He has taught in schools in Tanzania, Yorkshire and Somerset, and has worked as Humanities Adviser in Somerset and Course Leader for the History PGCE at Bath Spa University. He now combines his role as Director of the Schools History Project with his work as Associate Consultant for History in Somerset, and with consultancy for QCA, the States of Guernsey and UNESCO. Michael regularly provides professional development for history teachers at national and international conferences, and has written a range of articles, textbooks and on-line learning materials. Much of his work focuses on helping teachers to plan for effective learning in history, particularly through an emphasis on the development of students’ enquiry and communication skills. He supports teachers in planning history that is challenging, fascinating and fun for all students.

Dr Carl Watkins

Dr Carl Watkins was born in North Warwickshire and educated at a local comprehensive before going to Cambridge in 1990 where he read history as an undergraduate and completed a PhD in medieval history. His research explores medieval religion and he has written about ideas of sinfulness, concepts of the miraculous and beliefs about the afterlife. In a new project he plans to follow his interest in popular religion beyond the middle ages into the early modern and modern periods. He is a fellow of Magdalene College and a lecturer in the History Faculty where he teaches medieval political, social and religious history including a third year paper, ‘Death in the Middle Ages’. He has also been involved for a number of years in widening participation in higher education through initiatives sponsored by the faculty and the Sutton Trust.