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English

Richard English

Professor Richard English  MA PhD FBA MRIA FRHistS
Professor of Politics

Head of School 

Contact Details
tel: ++44 (0) 28 9097 3328
email: r.english@qub.ac.uk

Teaching Areas

Irish politics and history.

Research Interests

Irish and British Politics and History; Nationalism; the State; Political Violence and Terrorism; Intellectual History.

Current PhD Supervision Areas

Irish politics and history; terrorism and political violence; the politics and history of nationalism; intellectual history; Irish political biography; Irish-British relations.

Selected Publications

  • Terrorism: How to Respond   (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
  • Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland  (London : Pan Macmillan, 2006)
  • Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA   (London : Pan Macmillan, 2003)
  • 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, 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, 1996 – co-edited with Graham Walker)

   

Praise for Books by Richard English


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
 
    

Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (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

 

 

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

 

 

Richard English was born in 1963 in Belfast, and has worked at Queen’s University since 1989.  He read Modern History at Oxford University, then studied for his PhD with Charles Townshend at Keele University.  He has been a frequent media commentator on Irish politics and history and on terrorism and political violence, including work for the BBC, ITV, RTE, NPR, the Irish Times, the Financial Times and the Times Literary Supplement.   In 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA).

  

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

 

For Richard English, talking about his book Terrorism: How to Respond:

http://www.meettheauthor.com/bookbites/1816.html