Professor Abigail Green
My first book, Fatherlands: state-building and nationhood in 19th century Germany (2001), explored the tensions between state-building and nationhood in Germany through a comparative analysis of Hanover, Saxony and Wurtemberg. Shortlisted in the 2002 Das Historisches Buch awards.
More recently, my work has focused on international Jewish history and transnational humanitarian activism. I won the Sami Rohr Choice Award 2012 for my biography of Sir Moses Montefiore (1784-1885), the preeminent Jewish figure of the 19th century. Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero (2010) was also named a New Republic Best Book of 2010, and a TLS Book of the Year 2010. My work on Montefiore generated my broader interest in religious internationalism, and together with Vincent Viaene I edited Religious Internationals in the Modern World (2012), which examines this phenomenon comparatively across different religious traditions. Thanks to Jaclyn Granick I am now rethinking some of my work on Jewish internationalism from a gender perspective through a special issue of the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies (2021).
I have been awarded a 3 year Senior Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust to work on my new project, a book on liberalism and the Jews tentatively entitled Children of 1848: Liberalism and the Jews from the Revolutions to Human Rights. This project deals centrally with the revolutions of 1848 and their legacy across generations, which I trace through revolutionary families. My research in this area has prompted a number of collaborative initiatives, most recently: Jews, Liberalism, Antisemitism: A Global History (2020), which I edited with Simon Levis Sullam.
Working in partnership with colleagues at the National Trust, the AEPJ, Strawberry Hill House and Waddesdon Manor (many of which were sites of Jewish liberal sociability, politics and activism), I am also leading a major 4 year AHRC-funded project on Jewish country houses which has both academic and more heritage-oriented dimensions.
Previous research has focused on the interaction between regionalism and nationalism in 19th century Germany; on the intersection between international Jewish history, humanitarianism and imperialism; and on religious internationalism as a comparative phenomenon I welcome proposals from graduates that intersect with any of these broad research interests
Featured Publications
Teaching
I would be willing to hear from potential DPhil students regarding: European history in the long 19th century, modern Jewish history.
I currently teach:
Prelims |
FHS |
GHIV |
GH 11 |
Approaches Sociology |
GH 12 |
Tocqueville |
Nationalism in Western Europe |
Meinecke & Kehr |
Disciplines of History |
HBI VI |
|
1919: Remaking the World |
Projects
Publications
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1848 and beyond: Jews in the national and international politics of secularism and revolution
December 2020|Chapter|Jews, Liberalism, Antisemitism: A Global History -
Jews, Liberalism, Antisemitism: A Global History
December 2020|c-book -
Liberals, Socialists, Internationalists, Jews
March 2020|Journal article|Journal of World History -
Enfants de 1848: les Juifs libéraux et la tradition révolutionnaire en Grande-Bretagne en Europe continentale et aux Etats-Unis
January 2020|Chapter|Les Acteurs européens du printemps des peuples 1848 -
Beyond the pale: the country houses of the Jewish élite
October 2019|Journal article|Journal of Modern Jewish Studies -
Sir Moses Montefiore: the career of a legendary philanthropist’
February 2017|Chapter|Great Philanthropists Wealth and Charity in the Modern World 1815-1945Readable and informative, this collection offers an insight into the minds of the world's richest people and shows how individual acts of charity can change society. [Subject: Modern History, Social Studies, Philanthropy, Sociology, ... -
Religious internationalisms
December 2016|Chapter|Internationalisms A Twentieth-Century HistoryThis book offers a new view of the twentieth century, placing international ideas and institutions at its heart.History -
From protection to humanitarian intervention? Enforcing Jewish rights in Romania and Morocco around 1880
November 2015|Chapter|The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to the PresentA study of the emergence and development of humanitarian intervention from the nineteenth century through to the present day. -
The West and the rest: Jewish philanthropy and globalization to c.1880
September 2015|Chapter|Purchasing Power The Economics of Modern Jewish HistoryPurchasing Power repositions economics in our understanding of the Jewish experience from early modern Rome to contemporary America and traces how economic circumstances have formed the context for, and even underpinned, Jewish intellectual ...Business & Economics -
Humanitarianism in Nineteenth-Century Context: Religious, Gendered, National
December 2014|Journal article|The Historical Journal