Economic and Social History (Research)

We host one of the largest economic and social history research groupings in the UK.

Staff research interests are wide-ranging, including the study of:

• economic development

• financial history

• energy policy

• globalisation

• slavery

• urban history

• consumption

• material culture

• museums and collecting

• leisure

• religious belief

• popular culture

• medicine and disease

• gender

• sexuality

• the family

The diversity of our research means we can support students’ economic and social history study in a vast range of time periods and geographical regions and from the early modern period to the present day.

Particular areas of expertise available for research are:

• culture and society in early modern Britain

• slavery in the Atlantic world since 1700

• the material culture of gender in 18th-century Britain

• urban society and civil society in historical context

• cinema and society in modern Britain

• gender, crime and deviancy: Britain 1860–1960; energy policy in Britain since 1920

• the economic history of China in the 20th century

• the history of health and medicine in Britain since 1750

The University’s economic and social historians host three research groups: material and visual cultures of the past; enlightenment and popular culture; and economic and social history.