Professor Joanna Innes
Professor Emeritus of Modern History
Somerville College
More specifically, my research and writing has two main strands. One concerns developments in British, especially English social policy during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In addition, for more than ten years now I have been running an international collaborative project about changing attitudes to and practices associated with democracy in Europe and both Americas in the same period.
I see the academic study of history as a collaborative exercise, and have been involved in collaborative projects throughout my career.
Between 1990 and 2000 I was co-editor of Past and Present, and remain a member of this and several other journal editorial boards. I have spent several periods teaching or researching abroad: in Australia, Germany, Japan and France.
Research Interests
- British especially English social policy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
- State, society and culture in Britain 1688-1850
- Changing ideas about and practices of democracy in Europe and both Americas from mid C18 to mid C19
My current research follows two main strands. I have worked for several decades on the making of social policy in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland, and in that context have moved between exploring the history of the state, social history and the history of ideas. Some of my key essays on this theme are collected in Inferior Politics. Social Problems and Social Policy in Eighteenth-Century Britain (2009). I am also putting together a collection of my essays on poverty and poor relief, including some previously unpublished work. My new research focusses especially on changes in the British social policy agenda and policy-making processes c1780-1830, among other things on the beginnings of parliamentary engagement with health, education and working conditions; the renewal of parliamentary and governmental interest in the pastoral functions of the established church; changes in the ‘public sphere’ and their implications for policy making, and in the way Parliament related to the various parts of the British Isles. Many of my recent articles explore this new terrain.
I have also been involved for more than a decade in coordinating an international network exploring the 'reimagining' of democracy between the mid eighteenth and mid nineteenth centuries, across Europe and both Americas. An edited book emerging from this project, Re-imagining Democracy in the Age of Revolutions: France, America, Britain, Ireland 1750-1850 was published in 2013. During 2012-15 I held a Leverhulme International Network grant which allowed me and my co-organiser, Mark Philp to extend this enquiry to the Mediterranean region: we are now working on another collection of essays arising from that phase of the project, and also opening a new phase of enquiry on Latin America and the Caribbean, in collaboration with Professor Eduardo Posada-Carbo of Oxford’s Latin American Centre.
I am also interested in how historians conceptualise their subject matter. I have published on the concept of the public sphere (in Japanese only); on ‘networks’, and on the history of emotions (in the introduction to a forthcoming collection, Suffering and Happiness in England 1550-1850, eds. Michael J. Braddick and Joanna Innes. I recently organized an interdisciplinary workshop on the history of words and concepts.
Publications
Re-imagining Democracy in the Age of Revolutions
(Oxford University Press, May 2015)
Re-imagining Democracy in the Age of Revolutions charts a transformation in the way people thought about democracy in the North Atlantic region in the years between the American Revolution and the revolutions of 1848. In the mid-eighteenth century, 'democracy' was a word known only to the literate. It was associated primarily with the ancient world and had negative connotations: democracies were conceived to be unstable, warlike, and prone to mutate into despotisms. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the word had passed into general use, although it was still not necessarily an approving term. In fact, there was much debate about whether democracy could achieve robust institutional form in advanced societies.
In this volume, a cast of internationally-renowned contributors shows how common trends developed throughout the United States, France, Britain, and Ireland, particularly focussing on the era of the American, French, and subsequent European revolutions. Re-imagining Democracy in the Age of Revolutionsargues that 'modern democracy' was not invented in one place and then diffused elsewhere, but instead was the subject of parallel re-imaginings, as ancient ideas and examples were selectively invoked and reworked for modern use. The contributions significantly enhance our understanding of the diversity and complexity of our democratic inheritance.