Chair of the Department and Professor
Biography
Education
- B.A. (Hon) St. Francis Xavier University
- M.A. Queen's University
- Ph.D. McMaster University
Research and teaching interests
- British Empire
- Modern Britain
- International relations
- History of global governance
I'm currently working on a project on the role of the United Nations as a forum for debates about decolonization from the late 1940s to 1960.
Courses taught
- Arts 130: Global history
- HIST 266 The British empire, 1857-1956
- HIST 268 Comparative history of empires
- HIST 311 International relations, 1890-1951
- HIST/PSCI 369 Decolonization
- HIST 370: Bond, Bowie, and Brexit: Britain from 1945 to the New Millenium
- HIST 605 Global governance in historical perspective
Recent publications
Books
-
Uniting Nations: Britons and Internationalism, 1945-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
-
Before the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Oxford University Press, 2022; co-edited with Martin Gutmann)
-
International Cooperation in the Early Twentieth Century (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2017).
-
The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
-
Imperial
Citizenship:
Empire
and
the
Question
of
Belonging (Manchester:
Manchester
University
Press,
2007).
Book Chapters - “The British Empire, Imperial Citizenship, and the First World War,” in Simone Bellezza and Sara Lorenzini, eds., Cittadinanza imperiale: processi identitari e idee di impero dopo la Prima guerra mondiale [Imperial Citizenship: Identification Processes and Ideas of Empire after the First World War] (Rome: Viella, 2018), 91-108. [translated by Simone Bellezza]
- “Race, the Commonwealth, and the United Nations: From Imperialism to Internationalism in Canada, 1940-1960,” in Laura Madokoro, Francine Mckenzie, and David Meren, eds., Dominion of Race: Rethinking Canada's International History (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2017), 196-225.
- “Geographic Indications, Mobility, and Identity,” in Suzan Ilcan, ed., Mobilities, Knowledge and Social Justice (Montreal-Kingston: Queen’s-McGill University Press, 2013), 227-52.
- “Globalization, Intellectual Property Rights, and Emerging Property Types,” in William Coleman, ed., Property, Territory, Globalization: Struggles over Autonomy (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011), 122-47.
- “Freedom of the Ether or the Electromagnetic Commons?: Globality, the Public Interest, and the Multilateral Radio Negotiations in the 1920s and 1930s,” in Steven Streeter, John Weaver, William Coleman, eds., Empires and Autonomy: Moments in the History of Globalization(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2009), 138-56.
- “The War on the Periphery: The Experience of Soldiers Fighting in European Colonies,” in Timothy Dowling, ed., Personal Perspectives: World War I (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2005), 51-72.
-
“The
Experience
of
Commonwealth
and
Colonial
Soldiers
in
World
War
II,”
in
Timothy
Dowling,
ed., Personal
Perspectives:
World
War
II (Santa
Barbara:
ABC-Clio,
2005),
147-74.
Articles - “George Catlin, The Science of Politics, and Anglo-American Union,” Modern Intellectual History 15:1 (2018), 123-52.
- “Fractured Empire: Ideas of Imperial Citizenship in the British Empire after the First World War,” Comparativ 26:6 (2016), 15-36.
- “International Law and the International Thought of Quincy Wright, 1918-1945,” Diplomatic History 41:2 (2017), 336-61.
- “Britain, India, and the United Nations: Colonialism and the Development of International Governance after 1945,” Journal of Global History 9:3 (2014), 471-90.
- “Organic Union or Aggressive Altruism: Conservative and Labour Imperial Internationalism in Africa in the 1920s,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 42:2 (2014), 258-85.
- “The First British Empire Games as a Nexus of Individual, Imperial, and International Identity,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 27:4 (2010), 610-31.
- “Ecumenical Internationalism: Willoughby Dickinson, the League of Nations, and the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches,” Journal of Contemporary History 45:1 (2010), 51–73.
- “Empire, Internationalism, and the Campaign against the Traffic in Women and Children in the 1920s,” Twentieth Century British History 19:2 (2008), 186-216.
- “Liberal Internationalism, the League of Nations Union, and the Mandates System,” Canadian Journal of History 40:3 (2005), 449-77.
- “Race and the late-Victorian Imperial World-view,” John Buchan Journal 32:1 (2005), 41-8.
- “Lionel Curtis, Imperial Citizenship, and the Quest for Unity,” The Historian 66:1 (2004), 67-96.
- “Wider and Wider Still?: Intra-Imperial Immigration, Racial Politics, and the Question of Imperial Citizenship in the British Empire,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 3:3 (2002), online.
-
“‘The
Character
Creed’:
How
Character
shaped
the
British
Imperial
Enterprise,” Australasian
Victorian
Studies
Journal 4
(1998),
127-40.
Essays - H-Diplo Roundtable XXI-15 on The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, 9-14.
- All Things to All People? Thought on Liberalism and Imperialism, The Disorder of Things
- India and the UN Security Council, United Nations History Project
- Traditions of British International Thought, International Security Studies Forum (ISSF) review essay, 16-24.
- H-Diplo Forum on “Legacies of World War I Commemorative Issue”, 7-21.
- Ideology, Imperial, in John Mackenzie, ed., The Encyclopedia of Empire (London: Blackwell 2015), 1-3.
- Davies, David Arthur, World Meteorological Organization, 1955-1979, in Bob Reinalda and Kent Kille, eds.,Biographical Dictionary of Secretaries-General of International Organizations.
- Entries in Globalization and Autonomy Compendium, William Coleman and Heike Häärting, eds., (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005-2007).
Awards and achievements
- SSHRC Research Development Initiative Grant, 2010-2012.
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Standard Research Grant, 2007-2010.
- Arts Teaching Award, 2018.