Thinking the Empire Whole

By Prof. Steve Pincus (University of Chicago)

As part of NUI Galway History Research Seminar  Series Semester 1, 2019-20

Prof. Pincus describes himself as “a historian of Britain and its Empire, of comparative revolutions, comparative empires, and of northern Europe more broadly” and works mainly on the early modern period. His monographs include a comparative study of England and the Dutch Republic, England’s Glorious Revolution, and the American Declaration of Independence. He is currently working on a global history of the British Empire and a comparison of the Irish Revolution of 1782 and the American Revolution. For more details, see https://history.uchicago.edu/directory/steven-pincus

His paper on Wednesday is called “Thinking the Empire Whole”.  It makes a case for getting beyond the teleologies of national and proto-national historiographies so as to capture both the dynamics of empire making and the trajectories of colonial resistance.