Robert Saunders is Reader in Modern British History at the School of History, Queen Mary University of London. He specialises in modern British history, from the early 19th century to the present, focusing particularly on political history and the history of ideas. His research ranges from the history of democracy to the relationship between Britain and the European Union. Currently he is researching a new history of democracy in Britain. His book Yes to Europe! The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (Cambridge University Press 2018) won the American Historical Association’s Morris D. Forkosch Prize (2019).

Recent publications include: ‘Brexit and Empire: ‘Global Britain’ and the Myth of Imperial Nostaligia’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 48:6 (2020) 1140-1174; “A Great and Holy War”: Religious Routes to Women’s Suffrage’ English Historical Review 134:571 (2019) 1471-1502; ‘Doubtful Democrats: Democracy in Britain since 1800’ Journal of Modern European History 17:2 (2019).

Supervision areas: history of democracy and of electoral reform in Britain since 1830, politics and religion in Britain since 1801, the idea of America in British 19th-century politics, Britain and the European Community/Union.