| Post: | Reader in History |
| Location: | Arts A A163 |
| Email: | J.G.Livesey@sussex.ac.uk |
| Telephone numbers | |
| Internal: | 2187 |
| UK: | (01273) 606755 ext. 2187 |
| International: | +44 1273 606755 ext. 2187 |
Biography
James Livesey works on the cultural history of the eighteenth century Atlantic with an emphasis on the British Isles and France. His new book Civil Society and Empire: Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World was published by Yale UP in August 2009. The book argues that the concept of civil society was worked out by the Atlantic community as a means of understanding its location in the emergent British Empire. He has previously published on topics such as religious movements and republicanism in the French Revolution, literary intellectuals in the 1848 revolution and the culture of improvement in eighteenth century Scotland and Ireland. His 2001 Making Democracy in the French Revolution established his poistion in the historiography of the French Revolution and this continues to be a central research interest.
Jim has two research projects in hand at the moment. His is finishing a monograph on the origins of social change in the Languedoc. This will offer a new approach toward synthesising European history. He is in the early stages of a collaboration project on communication and co-ordination in the eighteenth-century North Atlantic. This research will contribute to the multi-year "Transitions to Modernity" project at Yale.
James previously taught at Trinity College Dublin. In 2008-2009 he was Visiting Professor at Harvard University.
Research
I am interested in supervising work on the following topics:
Social and Political change in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world.
Culture, politics and economy in the French Revolution.
The history of provincial Europe, particularly the relationship of historic provinces and kingdoms to emerging modern states.
Selected publications
2009
Civil Society and Empire: Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World New Haven Connecticut: Yale University Press ISBN 9780300139020
The limits of Terror: The French Revolution, rights and democratic transition in Thesis 11 pp. 63-97
2006
Intellectual History and the History of Science in Palgrave Advances in Intellectual History Basingstoke: Palgrave ISBN 1-403-93900-5
Republicanism in Encyclopedia of Modern Europe: Europe 1789 to 1914 - Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire New York: Thomson Gale pp. 5 ISBN 0-684-31359-6
2005
Botany and Provincial Enlightenment in Montpellier : Antoine Banal pere et fils 1750 - 1800 in History of Science Volume 43 pp. 57-76
2004
A Revolutionary Career? François de Neufchâteau does well by doing good 1774-1799 in French History Volume 18 pp. 173-195
Arthur O’Connor in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography pp. 60 ISBN 0-198-61411-X
Improving justice: communities of norms in the Great Transformation in Beyond Markets: New Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on Critiques of the Market c1800-2000 Cambridge: Cambridge UP ISBN 0-521-83355-8
Material Culture, Economic Institutions and Peasant Revolution in Lower Languedoc, 1770-1830 in Past and Present Volume 182 pp. 143-173
Myles Byrne in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford: Oxford UP pp. 60 ISBN 0-198-61411-X
The Dublin Society in Eighteenth-Century Irish Political Thought in Historical Journal Volume 47 pp. 615-640
2003
From the Ancient Constitution to Democracy: Transformations in Republicanism in the Eighteenth Century in 1798: A Bicentenary Perspective Dublin: Four Courts ISBN 1-851-82430-8
2001
Acts of Union and Disunion: The Act of Union in Atlantic and European Context in Acts of Union: The Causes, Contexts and Consequences of the Act of Union Dublin: Four Courts ISBN 1-851-82530-4
Making Democracy in the French Revolution Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 326 pp. ISBN 0-674-00624-0