Dr Andrew Tompkins
DPhil (Oxon), FRHistS
Department of History
Lecturer in History
Full contact details
Department of History
2.12
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I am a historian of contemporary (post-1945) Europe with a particular interest in environmental, spatial and transnational history.
My first book, Better Active than Radioactive!, examined French-German networks of anti-nuclear protest in the 1970s, and I continue to write and teach about activism, social movements, and periods of political upheaval such as 1968 and 1989
The other major strand of my research looks at everyday life in shared border environments, such as along the Rhine River and the Oder-Neisse line.
I joined the department in 2015 and previously held positions at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as well as Balliol College, Oxford.
I received my DPhil in History from the University of Oxford in 2013. I also studied History at the University of Chicago (M.A., 2008) as well as Political Science and International Studies at the University of North Carolina (M.A., 2005 and B.A., 2002).
My research has been funded by scholarships from the German Universities’ Excellence Initiative, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Centre Marc Bloch, Clarendon Fund, and Berliner Abgeordnetenhaus as well as grants from the Society for the Study of French History, German History Society, the Polish government and others.
- Qualifications
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- B.A. in International Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2002)
- M.A. in Political Science (Trans-Atlantic Masters), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Sciences Po Paris and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2005)
- M.A. in History, University of Chicago (2008)
- DPhil, History, University of Oxford (2012/2013)
- Research interests
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- Environmental history
- Transnational history
- Spatial history
- Everyday history
- 20th-century Europe
- Publications
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Books
- Better Active than Radioactive! Anti-Nuclear Protest in 1970s France and West Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Journal articles
- Generating post-modernity: nuclear energy opponents and the future in the 1970s. European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 28(4), 507-530.
- Binding the Nation, Bounding the State: Germany and its Borders. German History. View this article in WRRO
- Grassroots Transnationalism(s): Franco-German Opposition to Nuclear Energy in the 1970s. Contemporary European History, 25(1), 117-142.
- The Transnational in the Local: The Larzac Plateau as a Site of Transnational Activism since 1970. Journal of Contemporary History, 50(3), 581-605.
- Transnationality as a Liability? The Anti-Nuclear Movement at Malville. Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, 89(3), 1365-1379.
- Introduction: The Material Culture of Politics. International Journal for History, Culture And Modernity, 6(1), 1-12.
Chapters
- Towards a 'Europe of Struggles'? Three Visions of Europe in the Early Anti-Nuclear Energy Movement, 1975–79 In Wenkel C, Bussière E, Grisoni A & Miard-Delacroix H (Ed.), The Environment and the European Public Sphere: Perceptions, Actors, Policies (pp. 124-146). Cambridgeshire: White Horse Press.
- Alle Wege führen nach Gorleben. Transnationale Netzwerke der Anti-AKW-Bewegung der 1970er Jahre In Schmiechen-Ackermann D, Hellwig C, Stegmann W, Quambusch K & Hagemann J (Ed.), Der Gorleben-Treck 1979. Anti-Atom-Protest als soziale Bewegung und demokratischer Lernprozess (pp. 150-172). Göttingen: Wallstein.
Book reviews
- Review of Dolores Augustine, Taking on Technocracy: Nuclear Power in Germany, 1945 to the Present. German Studies Review, 44(1), 208-210.
- Review of Eleanor Davey, Idealism beyond Borders: The French Revolutionary Left and the Rise of Humanitarianism, 1954–1988. Social History, 43(1), 156-158.
- Review of A.W.M. Smith, Terror and Terroir: The Winegrowers of the Languedoc and Modern France. French History, 32(4), 615-617.
- Review of Nancy A. Naples and Jennifer Bickham Mendez (eds), Border Politics: Social Movements, Collective Identities and Globalization. Journal of Contemporary History, 52(2), 474-476.
- Review of Timothy Scott Brown, West Germany and the Global Sixties: The Antiauthoritarian Revolt, 1962–1978. German History, 32(3), 507-509.
- Review of Astrid Eckert, West Germany and the Iron Curtain: Environment, Economy, and Culture in the Borderlands. German History.
Reports
- Tagungsbericht -- Phantomgrenzen in Ostmitteleuropa: Zwischenbilanz eines neuen Forschungskonzeptes
Theses / Dissertations
- ‘Better active today than radioactive tomorrow!’ : transnational opposition to nuclear energy in France and West Germany, 1968-1981.
- Better Active than Radioactive! Anti-Nuclear Protest in 1970s France and West Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Research group
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Research supervision
I am pleased to supervise postgraduates interested in the environmental, social, or cultural history of Germany, Poland, France, and other countries in contemporary Europe.
I am likewise interested in questions of borders, migration, and minority populations (national, regional, or sexual) as well as the study of protest, revolutions, and social/political movements in Europe and beyond.
- Current Students
- Completed Students
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- Mirjam Galley - Builders of Communism, 'Defective‘ Children and Social Orphans. Soviet Children in Care after 1953.
- Grants
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- DAAD, 2020-2022
- Humboldt Post-Doc Fellow (German Universities’ Excellence Initiative), 2013-2016
- Teaching activities
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Undergraduate
- HST2504 - Two Germanys, ‘One People’? Central Europe, 1945-1990
- HST3162/63 - Solidarity, Sabotage, Students: Protest in Europe, 1968-89
Postgraduate
- HST6083 - Borders in 20th Century Europe