Economic and Social History

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.