David Priestland

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David Priestland
Occupation(s)Historian and academic
TitleProfessor of Modern History
Academic background
Alma mater University of Oxford
Thesis Ideological conflict within the Bolshevik Party, 1917-1939: The question of bureaucracy and democracy (1991)
Institutions Lincoln College, Oxford
St Edmund Hall, Oxford

David Rutherford Priestland is a British historian. He is Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Edmund Hall. He has served as the college's vice-principal since April 2023. [1]

Contents

Career

Priestland completed his undergraduate and doctoral studies at the University of Oxford. He was elected to a junior research fellowship at St Edmund Hall and a Darby fellowship at Lincoln College before becoming a tutorial fellow at St Edmund Hall in 1992 following the retirement of H. E. J. Cowdrey. [2]

Priestland's research focuses on the history of the Soviet Union and the development of communism and neoliberalism. [3] He is an occasional political and cultural commentator for The Guardian and New Statesman . [4] [5] His main works include a global history of communism, The Red Flag, a history of Stalinism in the USSR, and a historical sociological essay on modern global history focusing on neoliberalism and global capitalism, "Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A New History of Power", which focuses mainly on a power struggle between three "castes", or socio-cultural groups, fighting for domination within society. Priestland's main argument is that humanity has shifted from societies oriented towards a warrior-class, through periods of sage dominance into a modern hegemony of merchants, which has culminated in dominance by businesspeople and entrepreneurs. [6] In the book, Priestland's voice is mostly critical of global capitalism, which has attracted some notable criticism from other academics. [7] [8] However, Richard J. Evans, former Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, comments in The Guardian that "among the many contributions to the dissection of our current predicament, this is surely one of the most-thought provoking". [9]

Selected works

References

  1. ↑ "Professor David Priestland". St Edmund Hall . Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  2. ↑ Gosling, Justin (1993). "From the Principal". St Edmund Hall Magazine: 2.
  3. ↑ "Professor David Priestland". University of Oxford . Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  4. ↑ "David Priestland". The Guardian . Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  5. ↑ "Writer: David Priestland". New Statesman . Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  6. ↑ Priestland, David (30 August 2012). Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A New History of Power. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN   978-0-14-197082-0.
  7. ↑ "Priestland contends perpetual power struggle in Merchant, Soldier, Sage". The National. 25 October 2012. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
  8. ↑ Timmins, Adam. "review of Merchant Soldier Sage".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ↑ Evans, Richard J. (23 August 2012). "Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A New History of Power by David Priestland – review". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 13 September 2024.
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