Dr Anna Ross (she/her)
BA (Sydney), MPhil, PhD (Cambridge)
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Senior Lecturer in Modern European History
Full contact details
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities (nee Department of History)
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I am a historian of modern Europe, particularly Central Europe. I’m interested in the 1848 revolutions, state-building, empire, and internationalisation. At present I am writing about the internationalisation of territory after the First World War with the creation of international zones. This work touches on themes of empire, imperial afterlives, peacekeeping, and international/offshore worlds. I am also exploring international trade currencies, especially that of the Maria Theresa Thaler, which long outlived the empire from which it emerged.
Prior to joining Sheffield in 2024, I was Associate Professor in Modern European History at the University of Warwick. I completed my PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2013 and held a Junior Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford from 2013-16. I am co-editor of the journal German History (OUP).
- Research interests
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My first book, Beyond the Barricades: Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, 1848-58, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. It focuses on a group of moderate conservatives in Prussia after the 1848 revolutions, most of whom were determined to learn lessons from their experiences of upheaval and enact a wave of reforms spanning from criminal justice to urban planning. In other words, the work re-evaluates the fundamental importance of these figures to the breakdown of feudal realities across Europe, and in doing so, recasts the post-revolutionary period as one in which a new world of direct state engagement comes to the fore in the shaping of modern Prussia and ultimately, modern Germany. I continue to be interested in the 1848 revolutions and have recently extended this work with others in the volume State-Making in an Age of Revolution, 1830-1880, which is forthcoming with the Proceedings of the British Academy.
My current project pushes forward my work on Central European state-building by placing it in an international context. Against the backdrop of imperial collapse at the end of the First World War, I explore the contemporary enthusiasm for internationalisation and the creation of zones of direct international territorial administration. This work is funded by an AHRC Research Grant (Imperial Afterlives) carried out with Dr Jean-Michel Johnston (University of Cambridge). It also intersects with work I have been conducting on the internationalisation of Tangier, and more broadly, Spain's swansong of colonial engagement in North Africa (funded by the British Academy).
Newer work explores the history of trade currencies, following the movement of the Maria Theresa Thaler through international history.
- Publications
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Books
- Beyond the Barricades Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, 1848-1858. Oxford University Press.
Edited books
- State-Making in An Age of Revolution, 1830-1880. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Journal articles
- Down with the Walls! The Politics of Place in Spanish and German Urban Extension Planning, 1848–1914. The Journal of Modern History, 90(2), 292-322.
- Ludwig Noé and the Making of Danzig’s Free Port, 1920-7. Contemporary European History.
- International zones in global urban history. Urban History, 1-6.
- Property and the End of Empire in International Zones, 1919–1947. Past & Present.
Chapters
- Post-Revolutionary Politics: The Case of the Prussian Ministry of State In Moggach D & Stedman Jones G (Ed.), The 1848 Revolutions and European Political Thought (pp. 276-292). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Photographing Reurbanization in West-Berlin, 1977-84 In Betts P, Evans J & Hoffmann S-L (Ed.), The Ethics of Seeing Photography and Twentieth-Century German History (pp. 205-226). Oxford: Berghahn Books.
- 'Introduction' In Ross A & Aliprantis C (Ed.), State-Making in an Age of Revolution, 1830-1880 OUP
Book reviews
- Fighting Terror after Napoleon: How Europe Became Secure after 1815. American Historical Review, 128(1), 426-427.
- Making Prussians, Raising Germans: A Cultural History of Prussian State-Building after Civil War, 1866-1935. German Studies Review, 41(3), 626-627.
- On Unsettled Democratisation: History and Political Science in Conversation. German History, 36(3), 423-427.
- Sons and Heirs: Succession and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century Europe. English Historical Review, 132(557), 1000-1002.
- An Exiled Generation: German and Hungarian Refugees of Revolution, 1848-1871. Central European History, 48(4), 572-573.
- Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany, 1750-1950. German History, 30(3), 482-483.
- Beyond the Barricades Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, 1848-1858. Oxford University Press.
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Co-editor, German History (2022-present)
- Review editor, German History (2018-2022)
- Editorial board, German History (2018-2022)
- International Advisory Council, Global Urban History Project
- Public engagement
For my podcasts on the 1848 revolutions, please see the Historical Association or Massolit.