Dr Marc Palen

Term 2 (online) office hours: Mondays, 1:30-2:30pm and 4:30-5:30pm, online via Microsoft Teams. Click here to book a session.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Member, Centre for Imperial and Global History

I am an Associate Professor in the Archaeology and History Department. I specialise in the history of trade, economic ideology, and foreign policy. I am particularly interested in comparing and contrasting the British and US Empires from the mid nineteenth century and, more broadly, in exploring how political economy, gender, humanitarianism, and ideology have shaped global imperial expansion. My newest book, Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World, with Princeton University Press, investigates the intersections of global capitalism, anti-imperialism, and peace activism from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It was named a Financial Times 'Best Books of the Year: Economics', was a New Yorker 'Best Book's We've Read This Year', and one of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs's Top Ten 'Reads of the Year'. My first book, The 'Conspiracy' of Free Trade: The Anglo-American Struggle over Empire and Economic Globalisation, 1846-1896 (Cambridge University Press, 2016), explored the political and ideological contest between the British and US empires within the broader history of globalisation. It was a Financial Times 'Best Summer Books of 2016' and the Globalist magazine’s 'Top Ten Books of 2016'.

I believe that connecting the past with the present is an essential part of a historian's craft. I am the co-director (with David Thackeray and Andrew Dilley) of the History and Policy Global Economics and History Forum in London, and contributed to the Mainz-Exeter Global Humanitarianism Research Academy (2015-19). My commentary on historical and contemporary global affairs has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, NBC, the BBC, the Conversation, the Australian, History Today, Newsweek, and Time, among others. I am also the editor of the Imperial & Global Forum, the blog of the Centre for Imperial & Global History. You can follow me on Bluesky @MWPalen.bsky.social

Biography

I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Previous to arriving at the University of Exeter, I studied at the University of Texas at Austin, where I completed a BA in the Classics (2003), an MA in History (2009), and a PhD in History (2012) under the supervision of H. W. Brands and A. G. Hopkins. I have previously taught history at Tufts University and have been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the U.S. Studies Centre, University of Sydney, where I was then a Research Associate in U.S. Foreign Policy (2012-15). I have also been a long-term fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society (2022), and a research fellow at the Harry Ransom Center (2017), Smith College (2015), the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (2015), Stanford's Hoover Institution Library and Archives (2015), a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford's Rothermere American Institute (2015) and at Yale's International Security Studies, and have been awarded the 2013-14 W. A. Williams Junior Faculty Research Award by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Samuels Young Scholars Award by the History of Economics Society. I have previously been a Departmental Fellow, University of Texas at Austin (2011); Marc Friedlander Fellow, Massachusetts Historical Society (2010-11); Research Fellow, New York Public Library (2010-11); Liberal Arts Graduate Research Fellow, University of Texas at Austin (2010); Canadian Embassy Doctoral Fellow (2010-11); and a Churchill Scholar of British Studies, University of Texas at Austin (2009-11). My commentary has featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC, the BBC, the Australian, the Globalist Magazine, and Foreign Policy in Focus, among others. I am also the editor of the Imperial & Global Forum, the blog of the Centre for Imperial & Global History, and co-director of the Global Economics and History Forum (History & Policy, London).

Research supervision

I have supervised numerous MA dissertations and have supervised two PhD students to completion.

I am currently supervising four PhD students.

I welcome applications from students interested in my research areas, including those wishing to study remotely from abroad.

Possible research topics and themes include:

• British Imperialism
• American Imperialism
• Empires and Globalisation
• British World/Greater Britain
• U.S. Foreign Relations
• Anglo-American Relations
• Comparative Empires
• Ideology and Imperial Expansion
• Imperialism and Political Economy
• Theories of Imperialism
• History of Ideas
• Peace Studies
• Women and Foreign Policy