Dr Lise Butler

Overview

I am historian of modern Britain, specialising in political history, left-wing politics, and the history of the social sciences. My first book, Michael Young, Social Science, and the British Left, 1945-70 (Oxford University Press, 2020) examined the relationship between the social sciences and left-wing politics in the decades after the Second World war through the ideas and networks of the sociologist, policy maker and social innovator Michael Young. This book was nominated for the Economic History Society’s First Monograph Prize in Economic and/or Social History. My current major research project is The Third Way: A History of an Idea, which examines the role of social theory in shaping the centrist politics of the 1990s and 2000s.

I am the Primary Investigator for the British Academy project ‘Getting it Wrong: The Limits to Prediction’, which examines how predictive technologies, methods, and theories have ‘gotten it wrong’ in twentieth century environmental science, urban planning, literature, and visual art. I am also co-editing a new handbook of Labour Party history for Routledge, and serve as a co-editor for the journal Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy. My research has explored the roots of Corbynism, the history of British democracy, the history of environmental forecasting, social science and modern British history, and lessons from history for Labour in government.

I co-designed and served as programme director for the BA History and BA History and Politics between 2017 and 2024. My teaching was recognized with a Teaching Award from the City Students Union in 2021.

I completed my doctorate at University College, Oxford, in 2015, and have held a Lectureship in History at Pembroke College, Oxford, as well as fellowships at Churchill College, Cambridge, and the Remarque Institute at New York University. I am a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, serve on the advisory council of the Institute of Historical Research in London, and convene the IHR Britain at Home and Abroad Since 1800 seminar. I often provide commentary to the media, including ITV, BBC Newsnight, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and BBC Radio London.

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students in modern British history, left wing politics, and modern intellectual history.

Qualifications

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Higher Education Academy, August 2021
• DPhil, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Employment

• Senior Lecturer in Modern History, City, University of London, United Kingdom, August 2021 - present
• Lecturer in Modern History, City, University of London, United Kingdom, March 2017 - present
• Lecturer in History, Pembroke College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, September 2015 - September 2016

Languages

French (can read, write, speak, understand spoken)

Expertise

Geographic Areas

• Europe - Western

Featured publications

1. Butler, L. (2020). Michael Young, Social Science, and the British Left, 1945-1970. Oxford University PressOxford. ISBN 019886289X.

Publications by category