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Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology
Paul is a historian of twentieth-century and contemporary history. His main teaching and research interests focus on understanding the impact of radical and extreme ideologies on societies, past and present.
He is co-lead for the Centre for Historical Studies (CHS) and is currently developing the Extreme Right Research Network as part of this centre. This network offers consultancy and training services, as well as develops events linked to understanding extreme right politics.
He also is the academic lead for the Searchlight Archive, a major collection of material related to the study of extreme right activism based at the University of Northampton.
Paul regularly contributes to national media debate and discussion on the nature of the extreme right and has given invited talks on this topic.
Finally, Paul is an Editor for the journal Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies and is also the co-Editor of the Bloomsbury book series A Modern History of Politics and Violence.
Paul teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate History degrees. He is module leader for the following:
Paul also supervises PhD projects, which currently include projects focused on the history of fascism and the extreme right, literatures of the Holocaust and anti-racism in apartheid-era South Africa.
Finally, Paul has developed a range of bespoke CPD training packages related to the risks posed by the extreme right aimed at police, hate crime workers, teachers, anti-racism charities and others who may encounter issues related to the extreme right in their professional roles.
Paul’s research focuses primarily on the dynamics of neo-Nazi and other extreme right ideologies in the post-1945 period.
Paul’s career began with a PhD project that explored the history of radical and revolutionary ideologues in Britain during the First World War. This became a book, Great War Modernisms and The New Age Magazine, published in 2012.
Subsequently, Paul has focused on the history of the extreme right in Britain, especially since 1945. In 2017, he published a major study of a leading British neo-Nazi activist, Colin Jordan and Britain’s neo-Nazi Movement: Hitler’s Echo.
Paul’s most recent book is Pride in Prejudice: Understanding Britain’s Extreme Right, published in 2022. This is an introductory text focused on the history and current dynamics of the many fascist and extreme right groups active in Britain in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Looking to the future, Paul is interested in themes such as accelerationism and neo-Nazi activism in Britain and America, the history of emotions and the study of the extreme right, and how research in this field can contribute to wider efforts to challenge racism and promote multiculturalism.