Linda Colley
Encyclopedia
Linda Colley, CBE
, FBA
, FRSL
, FRHistS (born 13 September 1949) is a historian of Britain, empire and nationalism. She is Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University
in the United States.
, England, Colley was an undergraduate at Bristol University, and completed her doctorate at the University of Cambridge
, where she was supervised by John H. Plumb. After holding Fellowships at Girton College and Newnham College, in 1978 she became the first woman Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge
.
, where she was appointed Richard M. Colgate Professor of History in 1992 and where she was also Academic Director of the Lewis Walpole Library
. Her third book, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837
(1992), won the Wolfson History Prize
, and has attracted wide and continuing attention both as a study of the evolution and complexities of British national identities, and as a contribution to understandings of nationalism more broadly. In 1998, Colley was offered a Sterling Professorship, Yale's highest Professorial rank, but declined it in favor of an offer of a Research Chair in England.
That year, she joined the London School of Economics
as a Senior Leverhulme Research Professor and as School Professor of History. In 1999, Colley was one of several speakers invited to deliver a Millennium Lecture at 10 Downing Street by the then Prime Minister
Tony Blair
and his wife Cherie Blair
. This talk, "Britishness in the 21st Century" was subsequently widely referenced by The British Council and other national bodies. From 1999 to 2003, Colley served on the board of the British Library
and on the Council of the Tate Gallery
.
In 2003, Colley returned to the United States, going to Princeton University
as Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History. The previous year, she published Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850, an exploration of the underbelly of British empire in this period through the experiences of individual British and Irish captives in Africa, North America and Asia, and in 2007 she published The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History, which The New York Times
" listed as one of the ten best books of the year. In June 2011 it was announced she would join the professoriate of New College of the Humanities
, a private college in London, though she will teach there for just one hour in the first academic year.
Colley also writes occasionally for The Guardian
and for the London Review of Books
.
1998; University of Essex
2004; University of East Anglia
2005; and University of Bristol
2006. Among other major public lectures, she has delivered the Anstey Lectures at the University of Kent
1994; the Trevelyan Lectures at the University of Cambridge and the Wiles Lectures at Queen's University Belfast in 1997; a James Ford Special Lecture and the Bateman Lecture at the University of Oxford
in 1998 and 2003; a Raleigh Lecture at the British Academy
in 2002; the Chancellor Dunning Trust Lecture at Queen's University
in Canada in 2004; a President's Lecture at Princeton University in 2007; and the Gordon B. Hinkley Lecture in British Studies at the University of Utah
in 2010. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, FBA
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
, FRSL
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
, FRHistS (born 13 September 1949) is a historian of Britain, empire and nationalism. She is Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in the United States.
Early life and education
Born in ChesterChester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
, England, Colley was an undergraduate at Bristol University, and completed her doctorate at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, where she was supervised by John H. Plumb. After holding Fellowships at Girton College and Newnham College, in 1978 she became the first woman Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
.
Career
In 1982 Colley accepted a post at Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, where she was appointed Richard M. Colgate Professor of History in 1992 and where she was also Academic Director of the Lewis Walpole Library
Lewis Walpole Library
The Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut possesses important collections of 18th-century English literary manuscripts and books, including the pre-eminent gathering of Horace Walpole's papers and effects from his estate at Strawberry Hill...
. Her third book, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837
Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837
Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 is a history written in 1992 by Linda Colley. Britons charts the emergence of British identity from the Act of Union in 1707 with Scotland and Wales to the beginning of the Victorian era in 1837...
(1992), won the Wolfson History Prize
Wolfson History Prize
The Wolfson History Prizes are literary awards given annually in the United Kingdom to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing of history for the general public...
, and has attracted wide and continuing attention both as a study of the evolution and complexities of British national identities, and as a contribution to understandings of nationalism more broadly. In 1998, Colley was offered a Sterling Professorship, Yale's highest Professorial rank, but declined it in favor of an offer of a Research Chair in England.
That year, she joined the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
as a Senior Leverhulme Research Professor and as School Professor of History. In 1999, Colley was one of several speakers invited to deliver a Millennium Lecture at 10 Downing Street by the then Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
and his wife Cherie Blair
Cherie Blair
Cherie Blair , known professionally as Cherie Booth QC, is a British barrister working in the legal system of England and Wales. She is married to the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair; the couple have three sons and one daughter...
. This talk, "Britishness in the 21st Century" was subsequently widely referenced by The British Council and other national bodies. From 1999 to 2003, Colley served on the board of the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
and on the Council of the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
.
In 2003, Colley returned to the United States, going to Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
as Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History. The previous year, she published Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850, an exploration of the underbelly of British empire in this period through the experiences of individual British and Irish captives in Africa, North America and Asia, and in 2007 she published The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History, which The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
" listed as one of the ten best books of the year. In June 2011 it was announced she would join the professoriate of New College of the Humanities
New College of the Humanities
New College of the Humanities is a proposed new private for-profit undergraduate college in London, England, the creation of which was announced in June 2011 by the philosopher A.C. Grayling, its founder and first master...
, a private college in London, though she will teach there for just one hour in the first academic year.
Colley also writes occasionally for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and for the London Review of Books
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
.
Legacy and honors
Colley has received honorary degrees from London South Bank UniversityLondon South Bank University
London South Bank University is a university in south London. With over 25,000 students and 1,700 staff, it is based in the London Borough of Southwark, near the South Bank of the River Thames, from which it takes its name...
1998; University of Essex
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...
2004; University of East Anglia
University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.-History:...
2005; and University of Bristol
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
2006. Among other major public lectures, she has delivered the Anstey Lectures at the University of Kent
University of Kent
The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...
1994; the Trevelyan Lectures at the University of Cambridge and the Wiles Lectures at Queen's University Belfast in 1997; a James Ford Special Lecture and the Bateman Lecture at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
in 1998 and 2003; a Raleigh Lecture at the British Academy
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
in 2002; the Chancellor Dunning Trust Lecture at Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
in Canada in 2004; a President's Lecture at Princeton University in 2007; and the Gordon B. Hinkley Lecture in British Studies at the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
in 2010. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
- Colley was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours, in which list her husband was knightedKnight BachelorThe rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
.
Works
- In Defiance of Oligarchy: the Tory Party 1714–1760 (1982)
- Crown Pictorial: Art and the British Monarchy (1990)
- Lewis Namier (1989)
- Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (1992)
- Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 (2002)
- The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh (2007)
External links
- The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Book review of Captives - Princeton History Department profile
- Interview
- On Iraq
- Review of The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh in the New York Times
- Ordeal named one of the "Ten Best Books" of 2007
- Colley archive from The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
- Directory of Fellows of the British AcademyBritish AcademyThe British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
- Writing Constitutions into British History, talk given at the Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota, October, 2009