Professor of Contemporary History @HCAatEdinburgh. 20thC France/Europe, political & intellectual history, Hobsbawm, migration. Editor @conteurohistory.
Edinburgh, Scotland
Joined September 2015
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Publication day!
(For the US edition, at least - UK edition coming in a couple of weeks...)
Thank you to everyone who helped along the way ☺️
hup.harvard.edu/books/978067…
In 2024, I was invited to a wonderful workshop on intellectual biography in Australia. I presented on some of the methodology of my Hobsbawm book, and how space & place interact with ideas. The article I wrote from the presentation is now finally out 😊
press-files.anu.edu.au/downl…
There are still some spots available for my Hobsbawm launch @ToppingsEdin on Friday at 19:00. Come celebrate with me! (Or just listen to Rory's penetrating questions...)
Finally, a hometown book gig! I'll be at Topping's Edinburgh next Friday 30 October at 19:00 to talk about Hobsbawm and more with the wonderful Rory Scothorne. If you're about, do come along.
toppingbooks.co.uk/events/ed… @Harvard_Press
I still carry around a tote bag I got in 2018 from the "Lula Livre" encampment outside the prison in Curitiba where he was being held. And here he is today winning again, against all odds. What an extraordinary politician.
The intro to this great essay by Julian Jackson is a good reminder that hating protest and protestors is just as French as the act of protesting.
engelsbergideas.com/essays/f…
I found something I wrote about Macron after his first victory in 2017. I think it's clear now that he has failed, perhaps most importantly by offering no real vision for change.
Looks like the @CBC managed to find a real specialist to talk about what's happening in France for their daily @FrontBurnerCBC podcast...
cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/2…
Finally, a hometown book gig! I'll be at Topping's Edinburgh next Friday 30 October at 19:00 to talk about Hobsbawm and more with the wonderful Rory Scothorne. If you're about, do come along.
toppingbooks.co.uk/events/ed… @Harvard_Press
To clear my head and think about a different France, I went to see this beautiful documentary yesterday by Éric Baudelaire. It's a wonderful, touching meditation on youth, sight and vision. Well worth it.
filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/…
I was so appalled at the dreadful hot-takes circulating about the protests in France that I spontaneously wrote an op-ed yesterday. @ForeignPolicy were kind enough to publish it this evening. It starts by asking *why* there are so many bad hot-takes...
foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/19…
Amidst the mountain of bad slop hot-takes abt yday, the points here abt the police make good sense. It is striking that in Paris and elsewhere the police were neither able to manage peaceful protests w/out atrocious violence, nor respond to organised rioters effectively. The...
Premiers « retex » qui remontent à chaud des violences d’hier :
1/ Le dispositif parisien n’était de toute évidence pas suffisamment calibré.
2/ Sans doute la faute au renseignement qui jusqu’à vendredi après-midi tergiversait sur l’anticipation et la tonalité à donner à l’événement.
3/ Peut-être aussi au changement de nature de la menace : les pillages, dégradations et assauts contre les FDO sont désormais très préparés et les participants, depuis les émeutes post-Nahel, les épisodes de victoire du PSG, et les blocages lycéens, s’aguerrissent au point de parvenir à contourner les dispositifs.
4/ Mais surtout, la première des responsabilités revient au ministre de l’Intérieur qui ne souffre, parce qu’il se considère d’abord comme un technicien, aucune critique sur la gestion opérationnelle des forces de l’ordre.
5/ De toute évidence, la volonté d’empêcher le chaos qu’aurait dû incarner Laurent Nuñez n’a pas ruisselé dans les départements. Exemple à Bordeaux où la préfète de région Aquitaine n’était, semble-il, pas présente dans la ville hier.
6/ J.-L. Mélenchon a gagné des points hier pour le deuxième tour, s’il se qualifie. Il a imprimé dans la tête des Français qu’il était capable de mobiliser une masse insurrectionnelle en cas d’accession du RN au pouvoir. En cas de front républicain, la peur du chaos peut finir de convaincre les plus indécis.
Some more coverage on failed police response here (in French):
lemonde.fr/societe/article/2…
Classic Hobsbawm-as-journalist, where his curiosity about France and his desire to explain trumped his strategic misgivings about May 68. Also first and only time he published in Black Dwarf, hardly a natural home for his writings...
Eric Hobsbawm on May 1968 in Paris kmflett.blog/2026/10/16/eric…
"Could it have happened anywhere else except in France? In its specific details, no. No other country has revolution as part of its national tradition, so that in certain circumstances it comes as natural to put up a barricade as to raise the red flag...