Course Group Leader, Humanities; Principal Lecturer, History;
Co-Director of the Labour History Research Unit;
Link Tutor, Humanities: UCP, UCWA and CTF


Room: Hel 319

Email: jonathan.davis@anglia.ac.uk

Telephone: 0845 196 2072
International: +44 1223 363271 ext 2072

Dr Jonathan Davis is Principal Lecturer in Russian and Modern History and Course Group Leader for Humanities. He is also Joint Director, with Rohan McWilliam, of the Labour History Research Unit. His research focuses on Anglo-Russian relations, especially on the influence the Soviet Union had on the British Labour Party and its ideology. This was the subject of his chapter in The Labour Party and the Wider World (I. B. Tauris, 2008), which he co-edited. His book Stalin: From Grey Blur to Great Terror (Philip Allan / Hodder Education, 2008) explores Stalin's rise to power and the consequences of his policies when he became leader of the Soviet Union. He has published on visitors' perceptions of Soviet Russia for Revolutionary Russia and regularly contributes articles on Soviet history for 20th Century History Review. He has given papers on Anglo-Soviet relations and on Russian and Labour history. His current research focuses on Labour-Soviet relations between the wars.

His latest book is The Second Labour Government 1929-1931: a reappraisal (Manchester University Press, 2011). It is a co-edited collection of essays from the papers given at a very successful LHRU conference Jon jointly organised in May 2009, to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of Ramsay MacDonald's second government. Jon's chapter in this book assesses the ways in which Labour dealt with the USSR and the problems this caused the party while it was in power.

Jon teaches 'Russia: Revolution and Reaction','Russia after Stalin', 'Capitalism in Crisis: the Depression and War in Europe' and 'The Cold War: the world divided'. He also contributes to modules on 19th Century Europe and Western Civilisation. He is currently supervising a PhD on the breakaway of the SDP from the Labour Party, and was part of a supervisory team for a PhD on the Stalinist process in Polish production novels. He would welcome research students who would like to work on areas of Soviet or Labour history.

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