College position(s)
Life Fellow
Subject
History
Specialising in
Modern British History
Dr Alastair Reid
Degrees, Awards and Prizes
BA, MA, PhD
Research Themes
My main research has been in the field of British trade union and labour history, in which I have been a consistent advocate of non-Marxist, ‘revisionist’ approaches. I have published an innovative survey, United We Stand (Allen Lane 2004, Penguin, 2005, Japanese translation Hosei University Press, 2025), and a challenging case study of the shipbuilding industry, The Tide of Democracy (Manchester University Press, 2010). I am currently writing a book about the different approaches to the field.
I have always been interested in how history can help us to understand the present and possibly even anticipate the future. As a result, I was a co-founder in 2002 of History & Policy, a pioneering dissemination project which works to connect academics, policy makers and the media, and which is now based at the Institute of Historical Research in London.
With colleagues in London, I also produced Interviews with Historians, a landmark series of video interviews between prominent historians carried out in the 1980s and 1990s and now streaming free on YouTube.
Within the College, I was a member of the Legacies of Enslavement Working Group and carried out research on the abolitionist commitments of our founders, which became the basis of a piece in the Girton Reflects series on the College website.
Other
Lecturer and Director of Studies in History 1983-2015.
Member of the Management Committee of the History & Policy Trade Union and Employment Forum.
Member of the Advisory Group of the Mutualist Society.
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