Tristram Hunt

Profile: Full name: Tristram Hunt Area of interest: Society, politics, heritage, social history (expert on Urban History) Journals/Organisation: The Observer | The Guardian | Financial Times Email: tristramhunt@btopenworld.com | tristramhunt@parliament.uk Personal website: http://www.tristramhunt.com Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/tristramhunt Blog: Representation: Capel & Land Networks: https://twitter.com/#!/TristramHuntMP

Biography: About: http://www.tristramhunt.com/web/about-tristram Education: Trinity College, University of Cambridge: History; University of Chicago: Postgraduate fellowship; University of Cambridge: PhD on Victorian civic pride Career: Academic positions: King’s College Cambridge: Associate Fellow of the Centre for History and Economics Institute for Public Policy Research: Research Fellow Queen Mary, University of London: is currently a lecturer in Modern History - Making The Modern City, 1789-1914 (see: staff profiles) contact: t.hunt@qmul.ac.uk Politics: Intern with think-tank Demos; worked for the Labour Party for the 1997 and 2001 general elections. Co-wrote the encomium to New Labour's first three months in government Blair's 100 Days. Former researcher to Tony Blair and special adviser to Lord Sainsbury; in the 2010 General Election, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central Current position/role: broadcaster and columnist also writes/written for: The Times, New Statesman and specialist journals Other roles/Main role: University lecturer Other activities: Sits on the board of the Royal Institution Science Media Centre Trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund Fellow of the Royal Historical Society Disclosures: Viewpoints/Insight: Broadcast media: Wrote and presented a number of radio and TV series, including Civil War (BBC2), Isaac Newton: Great Briton (BBC2), The British Middle Class (Channel 4) and Past Presence (Radio 4) IMDb Video: Controversy/Criticism: George Walden: Immigration is fine for the rich (Criticises Tristram Hunt's views on his book Time to Emigrate? following a discussion between the two on Radio 4's Today programme) 5th November 2006 The Guardian: This milquetoast consensus is unnerved by radical faith: By ignoring the influence of religion on progressive politics, the new atheist orthodoxy reveals itself as stupid and solipsistic - 12th September 2007 (criticises Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett for their 'new atheist orthodoxy') Awards/Honours: Scoops: Other: Son of Julian Hunt, scientist and professor of climate modelling

Books & Debate: The English Civil War – At First Hand OCLC 59463994 , 2005 (see video: Meet the author The English Civil War At First Hand) Building Jerusalem: the rise and fall of the Victorian city OCLC 61254032 , 2005 Making our mark: 80 years of campaigning for the countryside OCLC70051856 , 2006 Art treasures in manchester: 150 years on OCLC181068498 , with Victoria Whi, 2007 Latest work: A biography of Friedrich Engels, The Frock-coated Communist OCLC298597985 , 2009. Reviewed by John Gray in The Independent here Speaking/Appearances: Friedrich Engels Memorial Lectures: From Cottonopolis to Original Modern: lessons from 19th Century Manchester for the 21st Debate:

All Journals: No regular column

Articles: 2013 Don't patronise urban communities – give them the William Morris Gallery - The museum of the year was under threat till a council realised that the local people were perfectly able to appreciate fine art - 6th June History is where the battles of public life are now being fought - From curriculum rows to Niall Ferguson's remarks on Keynes, our past is the fuel for debate about the future - 12th May Britain now has one selfish class - There is no sense of mission to this modern middle class - 8th April The Crown suffers if we can’t see the Queen - Skilful PR work will be needed when Elizabeth II moves from active ruler to figurehead - 13th March It’s right for schools to put British history first - Michael Gove’s new curriculum has serious flaws. But at least he cares about the subject - 6th March Israel, Palestine and the mapping of power - In portraying politics rather than geography, Ramallah and Jerusalem are displaying instincts as ancient as Ptolemy - 4th February Talk of ‘shirkers’ echoes Victorian past - UK coalition is distorting the welfare state - 11th January

Articles: 2012 The threat to local government's heroic, civilising role - Brutal cuts and the demands of core provision put services such as museums, parks and community halls at huge risk - 26th October Universities can't do everything. Reinvent the polytechnic - True equality between vocational and academic education calls for a plan for some form of polytechnic-style capacity - 19th August Olympic pageant riled right by showing the reality of new Britain - Opening ceremony was iconoclastic and era-defining – and its conservative critics' reactions speak volumes about them - 28th July London’s Olympic century paints a portrait of Britain - The UK is now more akin to Asquith’s than to Attlee’s era - 21st July The Cutty Sark not the Titanic is the true tale of Britain today - The love that is given to ships is profoundly different from the love men feel for every other work of their hands,” wrote Joseph Conrad - 23rd April India as 'cricket and curries'? That's not the way to win a fighter jet bid - The right is outraged by India awarding a fighter jet contract to the French, but it is this arrogance that damages our relationship - 3rd February Britain has socialism in its psyche, too - David Cameron's popular capitalism speech is a political move. History tells us another story - 21st January

Articles: 2011 If we have no history, we have no future - This elimination of our national story in many of our schools is nothing short of a tragedy - 28th August How the Brics are building on their history - Tristram Hunt on how the Bric countries are rebranding their global images - 10th June Love and leverage in an age of global royalty - Tristram Hunt finds modern monarchy liberal and internationalist - 28th April The politics of protest matter - That many on the right have been so quick to denounce the cuts protest says much about their contempt for public opinion - 29th March We need to start charging for museums and galleries again - Reintroducing entrance fees for the great collections should be a plank of government arts planning - 6th March The coalition holds Britain's cultural fabric in contempt - The port of Dover is now on the market. How does 'big society' talk fit with flogging off our heritage? - 2nd February A hammer blow for the peerless Potteries - The Wedgwood Museum must be saved as a memorial to Britain’s glorious industrial past - 24th January (writing in The Daily Telegraph)

Articles: 2010 History used to be the study of great men. Now it's of Everyman - The past has never been more popular as TV entertainment, but we should still value more serious studies - 21st November A Heathite lurks behind the big society - The voting system bill demands the sacrifice of tradition on the altar of utility - 6th September Nick Clegg: Florida, here we come - Clegg's rush to reform constituency boundaries will disenfranchise many poor and minority voters - 20th July Take the towpath that leads to the Big Society - We should mutualise the waterways along a National Trust model - 7th July The licence of academies - Plans to free up schools rest on questionable data and may have results that appal history buff Gove - 11th June (with Anastasia de Waal) The Tea Party: lofty ideals, grubby facts - Boston's was brewed up by wealthy merchants. Now corporate interests wind up the people with spurious talk of freedom - 16th March Britain has a duty to rescue its faded ports - Once booming cities are in real danger of business collapse - 8th March Southmouth doesn’t exist. Thank the Green Belt - Britain has been spared from US-style, countryside-gobbling, urban creep: but would a Tory government put that at risk? - 28th January (writing in The Times) Divorced from reality - The left's hostility to family and marriage has had some profoundly unprogressive results - 9th January

Articles: 2009 A Cameroonian Carol for our times - Behind the Victorian sentimentality of Dickens’ Christmas classic lies a pertinent political point - 24th December (writing in The Times) Rotten MPs outraged 1830s Britain, but at least had the sense to reform - A parliamentary history of a strangely familiar era should tell Westminster how to respond to the public's contempt today - 9th December Spare us Mr Sergeant's saccharine Britain - Enough of this nostalgic navel-gazing – we need to reimagine our place in the world - 15th November Cameron cannot lay claim to progressive politics - Warm words are not enough - 13th November This treasure stirs the West Midlands' Anglo-Saxon soul - The Staffordshire hoard has brought history to life in modern-day Mercia – and it is here that the collection has to return - 10th November What dinosaurs are still teaching us - The recent archeological finds of a pliosaur skull in Dorset and bullets at Bosworth are a refreshing change from academics speculating on the past - 1st November The Supreme Court is a perfectly English idea - Don’t let them tell you this is another American import. It is modelled on the free democracy of Britain in the 18th century - 1st October (writing in The Times) A very foreign policy - In cancelling the European missile shield, Obama is overturning a century of foreign policy based on a one-hour lecture by a Victorian geographer - 25th September David Cameron's California dreaming - The Tories' love affair with the Golden State bodes ill for Britain – the homeland of Google and green politics is in fiscal freefall - 19th September In Britain's dockland mirror, China is sailing into view - Emblems first of empire, then post-industrial drift and rampant capitalism, London's docks are now in hock to a new power - 7th September Betting shops and strip clubs stand as monuments to New Labour morality - The consequences of 12 years of relativism and market choice can be seen on almost every street corner in Britain - 7th August The suburbs are derided by snobs, yet they offer hope for our future - We now need to take a lead from Croydon and Kingston-upon-Thames - 19th July The Lib Dem power failure - The party controls swaths of urban Britain but lacks the leadership and vision our great cities require - 16th July The Karl Rove school of politics - The Tories have started a new game, turning their opponent's strengths into weaknesses. Labour should consider playing - 4th July Prioritising penguins - Should a modernist zoo pen survive while a fine example of the aesthetics of social justice is sold? - 22nd May War of the words - Engels's polemic against the injustices of rising capitalism that he witnessed in 19th-century Manchester continues to resonate powerfully around the world 150 years after it was written - 9th May The Marxist misanthrope - The May Day marchers will number only a few hundred. It's all the fault of Engels – he simply couldn't get on with anyone - 1st May South Downs is a true place in the country - Labour has transformed the south coast at last by declaring the Downs a national park - 2nd April Attacking the banks is nothing new. The English have been at it for centuries - From the Peasants' Revolt onwards, Britain has enjoyed a tradition of anarchic protest at poverty, inequality and the abuse of power. So this week's protests are healthy - but they won't change the world - 29th March Lessons about the war are history - Forget the chatter about Twitter, new plans for the primary school curriculum might just help to inspire passion about the past - 26th March Clarkson's philistines would appal these pootling pioneers - The very vehicle that green groups decry today was behind the wave of interest that resulted in their foundation - 16th February The perfect gift to soothe Obama's British suspicions - To repair the president-elect's UK impressions, Gordon Brown should begin by presenting him with Hope in a frame - 14th January This New Deal is a far greater gamble than you might think - Roosevelt's call to arms against recession is resonating today, but his followers would do well to consider all its implications - 4th January

Articles: 2008 Let good sense be no barrier to concreting the countryside - The construction lobby's argument for a greenbelt landgrab has been blown apart by the credit crunch. Yet still they win the day - 17th December 2008 Britain is ready to take advantage of this seismic shift - It is encouraging how well-positioned Britain is to take advantage of the post-American settlement. For ours is a global, often imperial history which has enjoyed - in the late 18th century and, again, the period 1870-1914 - times of remarkable trade flows and cultural engagement across the world - 23rd November 2008 Don't let politicians destroy the unique value of the BBC - The Corporation needs to rediscover its confidence if it is to recover from the fallout of its latest act of self-immolation - 2nd November 2008 Politicians have always been drawn to the rich and suspect - The shadow chancellor's Corfu antics represent a new low in British public life. But we should stop affecting naivety - 26th October 2008 Instead of ideas, Tories have the Jamie Oliver of politics - If the financial crisis gave David Cameron a chance to prove his ideological substance, he's failed the test miserably - 18th October 2008 Groundhog capitalism - As Marx and Engels found in Victorian Britain, predicting revolutions can be a frustrating business - 20th September 2008 The fate of 39 Labour MPs is at stake in Glasgow East - Looming over tomorrow's byelection is the shadow of 1707. Gordon Brown knows the union is crucial to the health of his party - 23rd July 2008 Stockholm syndrome - Wonder how Sweden created its social democrat paradise? They imported the ideas from Britain - 5th July 2008 Just get over it, Ken - London's Labour party needs to rid itself of the Livingstone past. But the ex-mayor won't go away - 23rd June 2008 Children should first learn that history begins at home - Within our education system, there lurks a crippling ignorance of British history and our cultural heritage - 25th May 2008 Octavia Hill revisited - A 19th-century social reformer devised many of the policies ministers are grappling with today - 6th May 2008 A waste of space? - Parliament Square has turned into another bleak, polluted London roundabout - 29th April 2008 BL hell - Opening up the British Library to every undergraduate in town is making it impossible for genuine researchers to get a seat - 21st april 2008 The business of giving - A new class of corporate philanthropists would have us believe charity is post-political. Far from it - 17th April 2008 Freshly tilled heritage - Rejoice! Great Dixter is set to be saved - and we get our finest planted gardening in perpetuity - 24th March 2008 The un-eco eco-towns - The government has entered into a pact with developers - and our countryside is suffering - 23rd February 2008 Patriotism before profit - The nobility of Britain are impoverishing us all by hawking archives to the highest bidder - 13th February 2008 Knock-knocking on Evans' door? - The Prime Minister has a humdinger of an appointment to make: a professor of history at Cambridge - 15th January 2008 (The Times) A museum of back-slapping will belittle our island story - The absurd plan for a Soviet-style celebration of Britain's historic glories and empire is no way to forge a sense of heritage - 15th January 2008

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Links: Guardian/Observer articles (archive) New Statesman articles (archive) Wikipedia bio Journal of Social History: Reality, identity and empathy: The changing face of social history television