Richard English
Professor
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Email: rle2
st-andrews.ac.uk
Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV): 1 September 2011 onwards
On research leave: February - August 2011
About
Richard English’s research and teaching focus on terrorism and political violence, Irish and British politics and history, and the politics and history of nationalism and the state. He was born in 1963 in Belfast, read Modern History at the University of Oxford, studied for his PhD with Professor Charles Townshend at Keele University, and worked at Queen’s University, Belfast, between 1989 and 2011. His books include Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (which won the 2003 UK Political Studies Association Politics Book of the Year Award), Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (which won the 2007 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, and the 2007 Political Studies Association of Ireland Book Prize), and - most recently - Terrorism: How to Respond, published in paperback in 2010 by Oxford University Press.
Professor English joined St Andrews in February 2011, and from September 2011 onwards will be taking up the Directorship of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. He is a frequent media commentator on Irish politics and history and on terrorism and political violence, including work for the BBC, ITV, NPR, Sky News, RTE, the Irish Times, the Financial Times, Newsweek, and the Times Literary Supplement. He is the author of six books and co-editor of a further five, and has published over forty journal articles and book chapters. His research has received funding from, among others, the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust and the Nuffield Foundation. Current research projects include work on his next two books, both to be published by Oxford University Press: Does Terrorism Work? A History, and Modern War: A Very Short Introduction.
Richard English has lectured widely on terrorism, political violence, nationalism, and Irish and British politics and history, including invited lectures in Britain, Ireland, the United States, India, France, the Netherlands, and Italy. In 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), and also a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA).
PhD Supervision topics
- Terrorism, Political Violence and Warfare
- Irish and British Politics and History
- The Politics and History of Nationalism
For details of a PhD Studentship (available for a student to study with Professor English as their supervisor during 2011-14), see this PDF.
Books
Terrorism: How to Respond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (London: Pan Macmillan, 2006)
(Winner of the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize 2007; Winner of the Political Studies Association of Ireland Book Prize 2007; Long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2007; Long-listed for the Duff Cooper Prize 2007)
Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (London: Pan Macmillan/New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)
(Winner of the Political Studies Association Politics Book of the Year Award 2003; Short-listed: Royal United Services Institute Military Literature Prize 2004; Short-listed: Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize 2005; a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2005; published in Italian as La Vera Storia dell’IRA (Rome: Newton and Compton Editori, 2004))
Ernie O'Malley: IRA Intellectual (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)
Radicals and the Republic: Socialist Republicanism in the Irish Free State 1925-1937 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)
Rethinking British Decline (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 2000) - co-edited with Michael Kenny
The State: Historical and Political Dimensions (London: Routledge, 1999) - co-edited with Charles Townshend
Unionism in Modern Ireland: New Perspectives on Politics and Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1996) - co-edited with Graham Walker
Articles
‘History and Irish Nationalism’ in Irish Historical Studies (in press, due for publication in May 2011)
‘Englishness in Contemporary British Politics’ (co-authored with Richard Hayton and Michael Kenny) in Political Quarterly 78, 1, 2009, pp. 122-135
‘Englishness and the Union in Contemporary Conservative Thought’ (co-authored with Richard Hayton and Michael Kenny) in Government and Opposition 44, 4 (2009), pp. 343-365.
‘The Future of Terrorism Studies’ in Critical Studies on Terrorism 2, 2 (August 2009), pp. 377-82
‘The Belfast International Terrorism Workshop’ (Symposium co-edited with Richard Jackson) in Critical Studies on Terrorism 2, 2 (August 2009), pp. 313-63
‘Winning the War in Afghanistan: Echoes of Northern Ireland and the IRA?’ (co-authored with Thomas H Johnson) in Brown Journal of World Affairs 15, 1, Fall/Winter 2008, pp. 273-85
‘Public Intellectuals and the Question of British Decline’ (co-authored with Michael Kenny) in British Journal of Politics and International Relations 3, 3, October 2001, pp. 259-283
'British Decline or the Politics of Declinism?' (co-authored with Michael Kenny) in British Journal of Politics and International Relations 1, 2, June 1999, pp. 252-266
'Reflections on Republican Socialism in Ireland: Marxian Roots and Irish Historical Dynamics' in History of Political Thought 17, 4, Winter 1996, pp. 555-570
'"The Inborn Hate of Things English": Ernie O'Malley and the Irish Revolution 1916-1923' in Past and Present 151, May 1996, pp. 174-199
'Defining the Nation: Recent Historiography and Irish Nationalism' in European Review of History 2, 2, 1995, pp. 193-200
‘“Paying No Heed to Public Clamor": Irish Republican Solipsism in the 1930s' in Irish Historical Studies 28, 112, November 1993, pp. 426-439
'Socialism and Republican Schism in Ireland: the Emergence of the Republican Congress in 1934' in Irish Historical Studies 25, 105, May 1990, pp. 48-65
Book Chapters
‘National Identities: Ireland’ in M. Flinders, A. Gamble, C. Hay and M. Kenny (eds), The Oxford Handbook of British Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 517-534
‘The Interplay of Non-Violent and Violent Action in Northern Ireland, 1967-72’ in A. Roberts and T. Garton Ash (eds), Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-Violent Action from Gandhi to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 75-90
'Socialist Intellectuals and the Irish Revolution' in J. Augusteijn (ed.), The Irish Revolution, 1913-1923 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 203-223
'Socialist Republicanism in Independent Ireland, 1922-49' in M. Cronin and J.M. Regan (eds), Ireland: The Politics of Independence, 1922-49 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 2000), pp. 84-97
'Green on Red: Two Case Studies in Early Twentieth Century Irish Republican Thought' in D. G. Boyce, R. Eccleshall + V. Geoghegan (eds), Political Thought in Ireland Since the Seventeenth Century (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 161-189
For Richard English, talking about his book Terrorism: How to Respond:
http://www.meettheauthor.com/bookbites/1816.html
For an exchange between Richard English and Dr John Regan regarding English’s book, Irish Freedom:
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/regan2resp.html
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/regan2.html
Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA
Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003)
Winner of the Political Studies Association Politics Book of the Year Award for 2003
‘a work which eclipses all other studies of the IRA and must now be regarded as the single most important book on the topic … a penetrating and rewarding study’
Times Literary Supplement
‘an essential book … closely-reasoned, formidably intelligent and utterly compelling … required reading across the political spectrum … important and riveting’
The Times
‘an outstanding new book on the IRA … a calm, rational but in the end devastating deconstruction of the IRA’
Observer
Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland
Irish Freedom: The History of Irish Nationalism (2006)
Winner of the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize for 2007 Winner of the Political Studies Association of Ireland Book Prize for 2007
‘a brilliant one-volume history of Ireland … [a] formidable study’
Guardian
‘superb survey of Irish nationalism … fine work of scholarship … ambitious, epic work on Irish nationalism’
Observer
‘a stimulating and learned study that deserves to be widely read’
New Statesman
Terrorism: How to Respond
Terrorism: How to Respond (2009)
‘If you want to read one book which explains the phenomenon of terrorism, gives you a good historical grasp of the subject while also providing a dispassionate roadmap to guide you through the term’s complex meanderings and its many intellectual cul-de-sacs, then this is the book for you. It is outstanding: short and beautifully written, it manages also to be thoroughly on top of its subject’
Irish Times
‘The clearest thinking on this scourge to have come along in many years’
Foreign Policy
‘Richard English is the author of outstanding histories of the IRA and Irish nationalism. Thoughtful scholarship lies at the heart of his fine analysis of terrorism as both a military and a political problem … In exploring this huge subject, English makes many telling points’
Literary Review