My academic background is interdisciplinary and includes a degree in History and Politics from Queen Mary College, University of London, an MA in European Area Studies from the University of London and a D.Phil in Modern History from the University of Oxford. I worked for Barclays Bank and as a freelance economic journalist (commenting on Spain and Portugal) before joining academia. Between 1987 and 1988 I held a Cañada Blanch Fellowship at the University of London. I was a lecturer in History at the University of York from 1988 to 1990. I had previously also held teaching assistantships in history and political science at a variety of institutions. I joined the University of Exeter in the History Department in 1990.

I have lived in, and been a frequent visitor to, Spain since 1983. Madrid, Badajoz and Salamanca have been my principle places of residence but I have travelled and worked in many other parts of the country. I am fluent in Castilian Spanish and have a reading/oral comprehension of Catalan. Teaching and research have also taken me to the United States of America, the Russian Federation, France, the Netherlands and the UK.

My earliest research interests were in rural history and, more specifically, in agrarian aspects of the breakdown of democracy and the outbreak of the civil war in Spain. After completing a doctoral thesis on rural society and political conflict in the south-west of Spain, I then published a number of articles on rural elites, social protest in the countryside and women's work on the land. I have continued to research and to teach in these areas, including on the wider relationship between rural socities and development in modern Europe, and in the history of population and food. In 2020 I joined a collaborative project on regional government and political breakdown in the months leading to the Civil War in Spain led by historians at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).

I also have an interest in the history of politics and political movements, particularly of the dictatorial right and left. This led to a co-authored (with Professor Jean Grugel) book on the Franco regime. I have also writtien and co-edited a collection of essays (with Dr Moria Donald) on revolutions in Europe. Following the opening of new archives in the former-USSR, I have also researched and written extensively on the history of international communism in the inter-war period. My publications include articles on different aspects of the history of the Communist International (Comintern) and, more specifically, on the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). I am currently completing a study of the PCE from its creation in 1920 to the end of the Spanish Civil War that focusses upon communist identity and culture as well as the politics of the party.

Research supervision:

Most aspects of the history and politics of Spain from 1808 to the present day. I would be particularly interested in supervising research on Spanish agrarian history, topics related to the Second Republic, Civil War and Franco regime, and on the history of Communist movements in Spain.

Europe from 1750 to the present day, particularly agrarian history, the Communist International and international communism between the world wars.

Other:

Exeter University Teaching Awards

• Lecturer of the Year in History (2009/10)
• Nominated as University Lecturer of the year (2009/10)
• Best Lecturer in History 2012
• University Best Lecturer 2012

External Associations

• Member, American Historical Association
• Member, Association of Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies (USA)
• Member, Seminario de Historia Agraria (Spain)

Qualifications:
BA MA Lond DPhil Oxon