Dr. Tom Leng

M.A., Ph.D. (Sheff.)

Lecturer in History

Intellectual history, commercial discourse and policy in 17th c. England

Office Hours: Autumn 2013-14 - Wednesdays 10-11am and Thursdays 12-1pm

t.leng@sheffield.ac.uk

+44 (0)114 22 22583
 

Jessop West 3.12

Major Publications

Biography

Tom Leng became a lecturer at the History Department at Sheffield in 2005, having previously completed both his BA and PhD at the university. He has previously taught at the University of Nottingham, and has worked on a number of projects at the Humanities Research Institute here at Sheffield. His PhD was on the subject of Benjamin Worsley (1618-1677, an individual most famous for having claimed to have drafted the Navigation Act of 1651, the major piece of English commercial legislation to that date, but whose diverse interests also encompassed experimental science, alchemy, and spiritual introspection. He published his thesis as a monograph in 2008 as part of the Royal Historical Society's Studies in History series, entitled Benjamin Worsley (1618-1677). Trade, Interest and the Spirit in Revolutionary England. His current project is on the Merchant Adventurers of England in the seventeenth century.

Research

Current Research

Tom Leng's current project is entitled ‘Disorderly Brethren: the Merchant Adventurers of England, c.1588-1688’. It examines internal conflicts within merchant communities and companies, and the social and intellectual geneses of seventeenth century ‘free trade’ campaigns, with a particular focus on the Company of Merchant Adventurers who monopolised the cloth trade with northern Europe. This project seeks to uncover the social and political implications of commercial activity, and the nature of merchant cultures in different regional and international contexts. He is also interested in the role of the enemy in parliamentary discourse in the English civil war and revolution.

Research Interests

Seventeenth century commercial discourse, practice and policies; colonial projects and commerce; civil war politics.

Research Supervision and Teaching

Dr. Leng has taugh a level three Special Subject HST3080/81 (Civil War and Restoration London) and the Further Module HST3038 (Plague, Fire and Dissent: London in the 1660s). At level two, he has taught the options HST213 (The European Reformation), HST247 (The Struggle for England´s Soul: Politics, Religion and Cultural Conflict in England, 1560-1640), and HST239 (The Export of England: Seventeenth Century Trade and Empire). He has convened the level one module HST115 (The Disenchantment of Early Modern Europe), and taught on HST202 (Historians and History) and HST3000 (The Uses of History). At Masters level he has taught on the core early modern cause ‘Early Modernities’, and optional modules on ‘Palaeography’, ‘Work Placement’, ‘Revolutionary England’, and ‘Universal Reform in Revolutionary England: Exploring the Hartlib Papers’.

Administrative Roles and Responsibilities

Tom Leng has convened HST115, The Disenchantment of Early Modern Europe, and acted as Director of Level One Teaching.

Selected Publications

Books

- Benjamin Worsley (1618-1677): Trade, Interest, and the Spirit in Revolutionary England (2008: Boydell and Brewer for the Royal Historical Society 'Studies in History' series).

Articles and Essays

- ‘Conflict and co-operation in the discourse of trade of seventeenth-century England’, The Historical Journal, 48, 4 (December 2005), pp. 933-954.

- ‘‘A Potent Plantation well armed and policeed’: Huguenots, the Hartlib Circle, and British Colonization in the 1640s’, The William and Mary Quarterly third series, Vol. LXVI no. 1 (January 2009), pp. 173-194.

- ‘Shaftesbury’s Aristocratic Empire’, in John Spurr (ed.) Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury, 1621-1683 (Ashgate, 2011). pp. 101-126.

- ‘‘His neighbours land mark’: William Sykes and the campaign for ‘free trade’ in civil war England’ (forthcoming, Historical Research).

- ‘Epistemology’, in Philip Stern and Carl Wennerlind (eds.) Rethinking Mercantilism: New Perspectives on Politics, Economics, and Cultures of Early Modernity (forthcoming).

- ‘‘Citizens at the door’: mobilising against the enemy in Civil War London’ (in preparation).

- ‘The meanings of “malignancy”: the language of enmity and the construction of the parliamentary cause in the English Civil War and Revolution’ (in preparation).