Max Jones
Research Topic
The Road to `The Last Crusade': Anglican Responses to European Authoritarianism in 1930s England
If you have any further questions, you can contact me at max.jones@pmb.ox.ac.uk.
Supervisor: Dr Matthew Grimley
My research explores the history of Anglican understandings of authoritarian politics in Europe during the 1930s. My thesis sheds light on a seldom researched area of British religious history by tracing the arguments expounded by both Anglican clergymen and laypeople on authoritarianism in Italy, Spain and Germany. This research examines how Anglican understandings of authoritarianism changed throughout the 1930s by investigating the literature produced, the ideological networks formed, and the vituperative personal correspondences between Anglicans. My research demonstrates how Anglican clergy and laypeople, contrary to popular belief, were not arguing amongst themselves exclusively on domestic issues but instead were deeply concerned about and, at times, personally involved with a political phenomenon that swept across Europe. As such, this study will challenge existing scholarly paradigms by reevaluating Anglican responses to Nazism in light of the understandings conceptualised earlier in the decade as well as reshaping our conception of interwar Anglican identity.
